FallibleDragon

Now blogging at PeaceJournals

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 20:15:31 GMT

Now blogging at PeaceJournals.org:

http://leeb.peacejournals.org

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 21:20:16 GMT

This stuff with North Korea vs. World is looking bad.

On one hand, I (even as a proponent of non-violence) can totally understand why NK might want to have nukes right now, given that they're one of the last strongholds of a way of life (namely a form of communism), and that they're being pressured to conform by surrounding countries with totally different principles. That's enough to make any country desperate. Having nukes IS something that other countries are entitled to, so why not NK? Granted, NK isn't possessed of the most wise and noble leaders in the world, but then, the US is the only country to have actually used nukes in anger, so why can it have them, if NK can't have them to protect a way of life?

On the other hand, I think having a few basic nuclear weapons will not be the deterrent NK imagines it to be, and that they're probably going to provoke a pre-emptive attack instead. After all, it took nuclear subs etc. to discourage NATO and the USSR from going further. Does NK have nuclear subs already, and trident-like missile programs to make these few nukes a realistic threat? I think not.

I guess to my inexperienced mind, it seems what they're trying to do is just elevate their status enough to be seen as a modern power, that deserves equal respect. But, without a shitload of money to build modern armies and, more importantly, to influence economies and thereby line pockets of the rich and powerful, I fear they'll never get that respect. Which leaves them desperate. Sadly, our leaders aren't going to be wise enough to give them respect just because they're human and deserve it like the rest of us.

So... yeah, seems like bad news to me. Anyone seeing a more positive (or negative?!) side to this?

floral barbarism

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 22:43:50 GMT

I went to a proper garden centre today, and got better soil for my bonsai. Then I removed all the soil from my Chinese Elm's roots, and discovered the worst case scenario...

Root rot. Fairly advanced root rot. Not good. I don't think I overwatered it, but it almost certainly got overwatered while outside, in hindsight. Anyway, the question now isn't what happened, but how can I help it to recover, if it can recover. Methinks it's dead.

I haven't given up though; I washed all the roots, and cut out as much root rot as I could bear too... the base of the trunk itself might have a tiny bit at the bottom around the outside edge, but I didn't touch that. The only way to fix that would have been to saw through the trunk and then plant that in soil again, which seemed like more harm than good. And it might be just a bit wet/clayish from the previous soil. So yeah, I might have wimped out there, but I don't know.

I put it in new soil, with a high percentage of grit, as instructed. Mostly grit means good drainage and less organic matter, which both mean less chance of survival for the "rot", which is actually a combination of conditions that mutually encourage each other while attacking the tree: like waterlogging, and fungal infection. I dosed it with fungicide in the first watering after repotting.

I missed a few things though... apparently, I should have disinfected the pot with jeyes fluid before putting the tree back into it, and "soil" with no organics (in other words, pure clay pebbles, like they use for hydroponics) would have been better than other soil. But, I did the best with what I knew and what I had; I really didn't want to wait around any longer when I was finally convinced that it wasn't going to recover on its own.

So. Now I wait and see. It has a chance, I guess. There's still some life in it; I know that much. The upper branches do seem to have died back though. Hehheh... I may have to put this one down to experience :)

"update"? "up...da...te"?

Wed, 31 May 2006 23:54:47 GMT

Hmm. Well, it seems I've fallen behind just a little with LJ updates :DD

Luckily (well, perhaps unluckily, depending on your perspective :) I've been encouraged to update by various powerful factions on the aforesaid site. You know who you are :)

OK, so... it's been a while. Let me think. I'll start with the course I'm doing, I guess. I'm almost at the end of it now; finally finished the MCSA: Security certification, so I'm a qualified systems administrator. Doesn't really matter except to those who think the bit of paper is meaningful, since I knew most of it before I started the course, but I figure that's quite a lot of employers. For those who don't know, I was sick in school, and never had any qualifications at ALL, so I think it will help my salary, and the calibre of companies I can get work with. I also did a Linux+ certification at the same time, and I'm finishing an MCDST (microsoft desktop support technician) cert this week (hopefully) too. That's easier than the MCSA, so it's a bit pointless, but it might be useful to talk about in some interviews where supporting users with computer problems is mentioned. It was offered free on the course, so I figure it can't hurt :) My exam for that is coming up this Friday. Well, it's not booked yet, but I'm hoping to sit it on Friday. Finally, I've been offered the chance to do Project+ as well, which is a project management qualification. We have to do that after the course finishes though.

So that's basically been it. I've been working my butt off, reading all day (even on the bus), taking exams every few weeks (every week right now), and trying to fit everything else in around that. LJ didn't make it, obviously. I did find time to write a program recently. I really liked Democracy Player, as I mentioned in an earlier post... but even though the idea was great, I found little things about it annoying. At the same time, I had been messing around with the python programming language, and with KDE-based graphical applications. So, they all came together somehow, and I almost accidentally found myself working on a KatchTV, which is a KDE broadcatcher for easily finding/collecting/watching different TV shows ("vodcasts") and radio shows ("podcasts") from different websites all over the net. I released that about a month back, I think, and released a few updates since. So far, it's been downloaded about 2700 times, and it's been ported to Slackware and BSD. I still have lots of work to do on it, but it looks like it's growing in popularity pretty well :) Another nice thing to put on my CV I guess :)

Peaceforge hasn't been so good. It's the project I believe in most, and hope will be most successful. But for now, it's just a disused website. I think the problem is that wikis just don't cut it for that kind of complex site. The simple edit/add page/edit paradigm doesn't work well when people need to organise complex relationships and keep track of whole topics, rather than individual pages. It's hard to find stuff too, when you have to actually read pages to find navigation options. Another major issue is the lack of community; wikis really don't let users interact well; often, it's hard to even know how many people are working on a wiki, or when a page you contribute to has been contributed to by others as well!

So I'm hoping another project, AMPU, will provide a better foundation for a new version of peaceforge. Instead of being wiki-like, which just has the concept of pages, it will have concepts like wikipages, forums, users, votes, and projects. It'll organise all this in a tree, which will provide a simpler navigation method. Most of all, it will be easily extendable with new types. So, say, if peaceforge or some other site needs to allow navigation with a map instead of a navbar or a wikipage, then I can just add a map plugin, and create the new page. The new map will be added in the same way as forums and all other parts of the site, and no major changes required just to get a new feature that I need. AMPU is still a little ways off yet though. I need to find a job first, and then do that in spare time.

I also need to get my car back on the road. I got my driving license back. It had expired, and I moved house, and then they wanted medical forms signed by my doctor and stuff (because I'm diabetic). There were also road tax problems. They kept sending back the forms and stuff, and one thing depends on the others. So basically, I was jumping through hoops, back and forth between the doctors and the license people and the tax people for a while. It's nice to have the license sorted out now. Can't really afford the insurance right now though, and I'm worried they might try to backcharge me for road tax, so it might have to stay off the road until I've done some contract work in the city centre via bus for a little while. I don't know.

What else? Oh, I kind of learned to play Go during my lunch breaks on the course. I say kind of... I thought I had learned it to a reasonable level (in the time) before, but I played a game online with someone last night, and got my ass kicked :) Computers can't really play go, so it lulls you into a false sense of security. Also, I started playing qGo instead of Panda GL-Go, and I think Panda wasn't setting the difficulty level properly, so it was too easy. Go is a great game though; really fascinating, and nicely balanced, and full of surprises, just when you think you've got it. I'm looking forward to many more years of playing that.

Oh, that reminds me. Bonsai. One of the reasons I got into bonsai was because they last for such a long time, and you can spend lots of time mastering the art, just like with Go. So that's why talking about that reminded me. So yeah, my bonsai... my chinese elm -- my only actual bonsai -- isn't doing so good. I'm really worried actually. It hasn't grown a single leaf yet, since losing them in (late) winter! It's June!! Now, I've seen people saying that it happens, and someone mentioned august I think, but I think I really screwed up the whole thing of helping it to go dormant over winter. It's still alive; I know that much. If I scrape the away a tiny bit of bark, it's still green under there. But otherwise, it looks completely dead. I'm not sure about the peripheral branches though; it might be dying back from the branches to the trunk. It's potbound too! But I don't want to do anything about that until it at least starts budding a little. Yep, I guess I neglected it pretty badly or got careless with it, but in my defense, it is my first :) My Japanese Black Pine seedlings are doing better; I have about five of them, all with a healthy spread of leaves/needles, and all growing well with good roots and stuff. I really like the Chinese Elm though. Hopefully it'll pull through.

Non work/project stuff. I met an old friend a while back... a guy I hadn't seen in years, and had regretted not keeping in contact with. Unfortunately I'm still not managing that. I really suck and making time to hang out with people. With having to take buses though, it means an extra hour before, and an hour after, if buses are even running at the times I want to go and come back. And then there's the diabetic stuff, of having to make sure my blood sugars are going to stay at the levels I want them while I'm out and about. Fitting that in with work and studies and other stuff is pretty hard. I haven't attended the local Zen centre for similar reasons. It doesn't bother me too much though: it's not forever; I'll get the car back on the road sooner or later, and some other things will fall into place, and stuff like that should be easier soon :)

On one of the days when I did get down to see that friend, I was late. After getting off the bus, I saw this woman crying pretty hard -- almost wailing -- to passers-by. As I passed, some man was consoling her, so I didn't pay much attention, but I guess I was worried and she saw me looking at her with concern. So I walked on, and turned down the street to Andrew's house. Except, I'd only been there once before, and it was the next street, not the one I'd walked down. Hehheh.. I walked into someone's house actually, before I realised, because all the houses are similar there :)

But yeah, I turned back, and when I got to the top of that street again, the crying woman was really wailing to people who passed by, looking totally lost. I had felt guilty about walking by before without helping, and so I was kind of glad of the chance to help now. So somehow I ended up hugging her, and trying to console her, and hugging her some more. Turned out, her son had died, and she was out at night, on the streets of the city, crying to random strangers in the hope of some spiritual support. So eventually I tried to gently suggest that she should go home and get some rest, and after more hugging, she thanked me and moved on, down that same street, where she said her house was.

I guess that whole situation concerns me on a number of levels. I'm really sorry she lost her son, and dismayed that the system had let her down by not providing a support framework etc. It also ties in with something else I've been thinking lately though; that our culture really has little sense of what spiritual strength is, or what it's useful for, or when it's missing, and who has it. So I guess people wander, with no sense of direction, because they don't know what they want, or how to get it. Or, often, they'll even lash out in anger, or let out wails of absolute anguish, just hoping someone -- anyone -- will hear them and fix it. The worst thing is, that it IS so fixable. We could support these people; we could have a society where spiritual strength and wisdom and mutual, community support are all taught before how to get ahead of the competition, or how to point out those who don't have perfect looks or how to give insults better than the insults that were given to us. Such a sad state of affairs.

And yet, people try. We progress a little at a time, all struggling towards that beautiful, distant goal we're all striving for. Every forward footstep that any of us can take sends out little echos against the hard ground, reaching a few ears, inviting them to take just one more step too. And together, we walk on, or stumble on, or whatever it is we do. Life is beautiful. Because, somehow, it works, despite all the odds :)

TV is so dead

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 18:34:52 GMT

Wow. I never realised just how far this multimedia convergence thing was going to go until today.

http://www.getdemocracy.com/

+

http://www.podcastingnews.com/forum/link_211.htm

+

Bittorrent site feeds

= Internet TV :)

For anyone who's still a bit lost, the podcasting thing has been spreading to video for a while. But it's always been just a little too awkward, until now. But Democracy Player changes all that. Just install the app, and start choosing programs you'd like to watch, and channels you'd like to subscribe to (free of course). It'll download episodes for you from all over the net -- of actual TV shows on bittorrent sites, or just from hundreds (so far) of independent producers on the web. It takes some time to download them but you just pick them, and forget about it, and it tells you when they're done. After a while, unless you choose to save them, it'll remove them again to save space. It's a lot like a TIVO or other PVR (Sky+ anyone?), but free, and much bigger in terms of potential.

The only problem is that the player is still a bit flakey, and it's not compatible with every feed out there, but it's still very usable, and judging from their site, it looks like it'll keep improving.

Now, maybe it's just me, but it looks a lot like the top-down TV and movie industries are really going to go the same way as the music industry is beginning to go. So maybe someday we'll finally reach that stage where the music and video industries are true meritocracies, with only popularity and quality determining which feeds are the most successful.

This is fascinating stuff. I'd recommend having a good play with this, even if you don't think you'll use it for real until it matures some :)

*sigh* if only Smallville wasn't postponed ;(

not alone?

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 22:31:33 GMT

Hmm. There's a theory going around that Sol (i.e., our sun) has a companion star. Interesting stuff.

most insane idea ever

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:17:39 GMT

Kids need human touch, so wire them up to a machine and fly away. :((

Sun, 27 Nov 2005 09:55:12 GMT

Some of you wanted to know when this was open to the public. It still needs lots of work -- infrastructure and a much better design as well as content and community and ease of use and all. We are kind of opening it up a bit now though, to see what will happen and what directions it might take, so:

PeaceForge

It's nowhere near as user-friendly as I'd like so far. I'd really like people to be able to find information quickly on different conflicts they might be struggling with, and to see immediately what patterns they're involved in, and ways to escape them.

Thoughts and comments welcome though :) The site itself also has a place for comments and ideas and stuff, if you check out the Meta pages.

Smart-ass laptops

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 13:32:49 GMT

Linux kernel 2.6.14 came out recently, so I've been reading through the changelogs. One of the new features is built-in support for the accelerometer in IBM Thinkpads, which detects when they're falling, and protects the harddrive by parking its heads.

But there's a small debate going on now, about why Linux has to do this, when it's supposed to be a feature of the laptop/drive itself. Theoretically, if this was done inside a chip in the drive of the laptop, it'd probably work much faster and more reliably.

So, part of the discussion (on LWN.net) about doing it in software took a Jab at how windows asks you silly questions:

Why is this level of software support needed?
This is needed by the windows driver, it has to displays a popup:
Falling laptop wizard

Exclusive "hard drive active protection system" technology
is detecting that your laptop is falling.

Do you want Windows stop the hard disks ?
[YES] [NO] [HELP]
(Posted Oct 21, 2005 11:44 UTC (Fri) by guest tushar@mwti.net) (Post reply)
So u expect to press yes when it falls from table? If u can press yes that why not to hold it properly.

(Posted Oct 28, 2005 6:10 UTC (Fri) by guest turpie) (Post reply)
If you're confused as to how that popup dialog operates try reading this article for more information.

And another, even better part of the discussion:

IMHO subsystems like this (including other things like fan controllers and CPU temperature sensors should not depend on the host CPU at all. The host CPU is busy doing other things, thank you very much, and may not always be able to respond to a whiny little sensor nobody has ever heard of

Hehhehheh :)

update

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 11:57:01 GMT

Hehh, I guess I should probably update this thing :)

Well, I applied for a course about a year ago, almost immediately after hearing about it. Basically, it gives professional IT certifications that would really help my CV. So I called 'em a few times, making sure they knew I was interested, but they didn't have the schedule worked out for the next year etc. yet, so I just had to leave my details and hope for the best. Eventually, I figured it wasn't happening, and forgot all about it. Then, about six weeks ago, they called me for an interview. Went, but they thought other people needed the course more. They put me on a reserve list anyway. And then, after a week, three people had dropped out, so I was in :)

Four weeks later, I've just finished an MCP exam, with really good marks, and I'm expecting to do OK in the next four exams as well. If I do, it'll really boost my employability, and earning potential. Even just this first one has been great for four week's work :)

So it's a full time course. Next week I'm off for halloween, and really looking forward to the break after all that intensive studying :)

My dad's in hospital right now, with heart problems. He's having an angioplasty (where they insert a little balloon into the blood vessels around the heart to widen them) soon, but that's a fairly common and safe procedure these days, from what I gather :)

Anyways. Since I have some time off, I'm looking forward to some modelling in blender this week :) For now, I'm trying to figure out how lofting works in blender, for a sailboat I want to model, and since I can't get terragen to load, this blender-only landscape tutorial looks like something I want to try too:

http://www.linuxgraphic.org/section3d/blender/pages/didacticiels/paysages/index-ang.html

Maybe my boat will fit nicely in a scene like that when (if!) I'm finally done :)

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 18:41:02 GMT

Hmm... I get to be the chip on Gorbachev's shoulder :) The proximity to vader is a bit worrying, though :D Also worrying is the proximity of republicans to fascists. But I guess I knew that :)

You are a
Social Liberal
(61% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(6% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

worst rain ever

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 19:26:10 GMT

Been playin' with blender again :) This is far from done, even by my crappy standards -- all I'm really happy with is the table surface, and the curves of the surface. Table legs need work, lamp needs work, window needs glass, curtains, etc. A book or parchment on the table would be nice too, maybe along with a pen or a quill.

But... I might actually be starting to get the hang of materials and lighting a little in blender :) It's a little worrying that it takes so long though, since I was more comfortable in 3DSMax, and it happened much more quickly, with less reading. But this is definite progress :D

fly-bys

Sun, 11 Sep 2005 17:26:07 GMT

Warning: if you're not really soppy like me, this could make you sick ;)

A little fly just landed on my hand. Normally, I would have gently shooed it away, and got on with what I was doing, but this time I was at a "natural break" as they say, so I just let him be, figuring he'd fly off in a moment. Instead, I got to watch this marvellous ritual, as he sat and cleaned himself. I've seen flys crossing their front legs, and cleaning their heads between those front legs before, of course. But I never realised it was actually a cleaning process -- I guess I figured they were just twitchy little things :) But no... they rub their legs together for a while, probably getting some sort of fluid built up, and then they sit and wash themselves with their legs.

And who knew...? They actually sit and clean their wings, too, getting their hind legs up over their backs, and brushing down the top of their wings. I always figured their wings were probably their main focus besides their eatin' gear. They seem to have more control over those back legs than their wings though, since the wings were getting pushed up, and foreward, and it was struggling to get the legs in front of them, and over the top to brush 'em down each time. Then, it started cleaning the underside of its wings, too. Eventually, it was done, and so it settled down for a while, content with itself.

Finally, I figured I'd get back to work, and gently blew on it 'till it flew off. But I never quite expected such a complex personal grooming ritual from a fly. I'm so glad I wasn't rushing to do something just then, and had the time to really look :)

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 12:58:34 GMT

Hehhehhh...

This Shrub quote was brought to you by aphroditelives, by the word days, and by the number too damn many.

Sun, 28 Aug 2005 00:10:26 GMT

From wikipedia:

Approximately the size of a golf ball, the sulfur lamp consists of a quartz bulb containing non-toxic sulfur and inert argon gas at the end of a thin glass spindle. A microwave magnetron energy source of 2.45 GHz bombards the lamp. The microwave energy excites the gas, which in turn heats the sulfur to an extreme degree, forming a brightly-glowing plasma capable of illuminating great areas.

Hehheh... that sounds like so much fun. Maybe I should buy one, find a wooded area near lots of houses, and fake a UFO landing... ;D

Debian Project mourns the loss of Jens Schmalzig

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 11:43:11 GMT

The Debian Project has lost another member of its community. Jens
Schmalzig (jensen) died on July 30th in a tragic accident at his
workplace in Munich.

Jens was involved in Debian as a maintainer of several packages, as
supporter of the PowerPC port, as a member of the kernel team, and was
instrumental in taking the PowerPC kernel package to version 2.6. He
also maintained the Mac-on-Linux emulator and its kernel modules,
helped with the installer and with local Munich activities. The
kernel team dedicates the 2.6.12-2 release to him.

The Debian Project honours his good work and strong dedication to
Debian and Free Software. The contribution of Jens will not be
forgotten, and other developers will continue his work.

Jens will be missed. He left behind a wife and three children, who
have our sympathy.

*sigh*. Didn't know the guy... I'm sure I've had a conversation or two with him over bugs or something, but I can't track them down now. I use and appreciate the fruits of his work every day though, and I'm sure I'll notice the gap left behind :(

Hope his family are doing OK :(

I also hope his name goes on a memorial someday, as one of the people who made a stand against the loss of software freedom. I really do consider these guys heroes in a sense -- not in the big sense of a lone crusader, but they're all really trying, in their own small way, to make the world better for us all. Judging from what he was involved with, Jens was one of the brighter lights among them :)

what's so civil about war anyway?

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 22:12:41 GMT

Jeez... watched a documentary about the nukes dropped on Japan tonight. Cried about four times, and just stared in horror for a lot of the rest. Words completely fail me :(

I had been reconsidering my stance on non-violence a LITTLE recently; thinking that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to learn something like Aikido (the supposedly "non-violent" martial art, purely for defense). Watching that documentary knocked any such silly ideas right out of me, thankfully.

So I found a free Yoga video online instead; something else I've been considering lately. I do need to start regular exercise again, just to keep myself in shape, and I didn't want to resume the martial arts exercises that I learnt in the past, even if only doing the warm-up parts of that practice. So yoga will hopefully be a nice alternative, and much more interesting to me, too :)

I finally took the plunge, and have been watching the new Stargate SG1 Season 9 and Atlantis Season 2 (also a tiny bit of BSG Season 2). All going in interesting new directions, which holds lots of promise for entertainment value :)

I applied for a course recently... one I inquired about over a year ago, and just got contacted about last week. That would give me four different qualifications -- Microsoft administration and such -- in one go, so if they think I qualify, it'll be pretty handy. Also, it's in the same area as my local meditation centre, which I hadn't managed to prioritise for its own sake, so being in the area anyway would help there :)

Work-wise, I've been happily working with Python again, doing more work on my plugin for Inkscape. I also have a basically functional Jabber-based Livehelp client, which I'm working on building into a full livehelp webapp.

Oh, gotta go get my car's battery off charge, before it's too dark to see out there.

distinct lack of elephantine quality

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 17:59:26 GMT

An example of my terrible memory. I was just sitting here trying to remember what I had for lunch. Then I remembered something: a really big clue that would help to re-construct the scene:

My lunch... it was something... on a plate.

*sigh* And I took that clue so seriously, for a moment there :)

Cuteness

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 22:25:23 GMT

lol, ferrets just rock sometimes… :)

http://www.livejournal.com/community/ferretlovers/1621881.html

this'll be fun...

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 22:59:12 GMT

Hrrm.. I knew I shouldn't have cooked up those slightly-thawed veggie burgers from the freezer for lunch today. Now I get to stay up for the next few hours, running back and forward to the bathroom ;/ *sigh*

Still, life has gotta hammer these lessons home, I guess ;D

Anyways. Still working on peaceforge. Did some mockups today -- one a terrible looking, quick thing, but with a nice idea behind it, the other a really generic and mostly meaningless thing, that probably looks nice. But I'll probably do more before anyone settles on a final choice.

Yep. Times up.

250KBPS??!

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 00:41:41 GMT

Hmmm, somehow I've been given a serious broadband upgrade. My max speed used to be 80KBPS or so, and now it's between 220 and 280KBPS!!!(!!)!

Hehh, that's not bad, from the other side of the world. Compare that to formatting a measly 1.4Meg disk, which can take almost a minute :) Pity I don't have some movies I want to see or something :) But at least my ubuntu upgrades are getting along nicely :)

Wasn't so warm today, which was also a nice change. I left the fan pointing into Jazz's cage again, and after a while he was curled up again, back in his sleeping bag. So I guess he wasn't trying to cope with the heat today, like he was yesterday :D

The project (which I don't want to keep naming here in case it screws up search results) is still improving: I've got most of the basic pages done now: just one section really remaining, and a few new sections we've decided to add. Some of the folks from other organisations haven't weighed in yet; they may be less interested than they were when it was all just a concept, rather than something real that involves work. But Espen's been making a good start on heavyweight content, and he still has lots of other people to talk to that may be interested, so it's no problem for now. We've lots to be getting on with anyway :)

Anyways; 'tis too late. Should be sleeping :)

required: one waterfall

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 22:31:45 GMT

Jeez, it's warm. 11pm, it's dark outside, both windows are open, the fan's on at full power (though, admittedly, it's pointed at Jazz's cage, not me) and I'm still wiping sweat from my brow, like I have been for about 12 hours now.

Hottest july day in 16 years , I think they said on TV. God knows what august will be like. But I guess I can step up a few gears yet, and adapt :) I always liked heat. It's tough when you're trying to concentrate on work, and it's real bad for ferrets since they can't sweat, But just lying around in that kind of sun (and, ideally, an occasional light breeze) is great :)

My sis got married a few weeks back (don't know if I blogged the wedding etc. or not), and they just came back from their honeymoon. Paul, my new brother in law, is pretty sick with sunstroke and blisters and stuff. Apparently, she dragged him off to Cyprus without telling him much about it, when she knew he couldn't handle heat. *sigh* That's my sis for you, I suppose; not that she's ruthless, but she'd easily underestimate the needs of others and get carried away with having a good time :) So yeah... he's recovering after his honeymoon and will be dragging himself back to work soon. Fun, fun, fun :)

PeaceForge is still going well: Espen added some content today, which reads pretty well; if all the pages are of that quality, things will be good :) I'm bouncing about ideas for a logo and site design while just trying to get the basics functioning in time for other people coming on board. Spent today mostly doing other stuff, but tomorrow I'll be back at it.

Now. I shall get my almost-liquified self to the kitch, for a cool drink or something :)

wimbledon walkabout

Sun, 03 Jul 2005 22:33:48 GMT

Well, wimbledon is done, and has gone walkabout for another year. I think the sign a few spectators held up earlier in the week summarised it:

Federer is betterer :)

Gotta admire a guy who can play at a world-class level, and actually win, while looking totally relaxed and calm. Master craftsman.

Anyway. In other news, Peaceforge is still going good; got lots more done today, and things are starting to pick up pace. Hopefully I'll get most of the basics finished soonish, and it'll take on a life of its own as more people get involved :) But... I should really try not to get ahead of myself with that :)

There was other stuff, but I'm off to watch a film :)

peace, live8, and bad memories

Sat, 02 Jul 2005 22:03:57 GMT

That little project I started a while back, peaceforge, might just turn into something big. I had a brief summary about what I intended to do with it on my site, and another guy, who was planning a similar thing of the same name, found that. So he contacted me, and we're working on it together now. He's directly involved with a nonviolence organisation, and has a number of useful contacts who can help, and is building up a list of 3000+ organisations we can get involved. I've been getting up a basic site for testing, and hosting it as a subsection of my site. Very early days, and I expect directions will change as more people get involved, but if things keep going like this, it could be great :)

Aside from some other work earlier, I've been watching Live8 for most of today. Very moving stuff, at least at the start; I was on the verge of tears watching some bits. Guess it won't have any major effects, but hopefully it'll do some good :)

Unfortunately, my niece's birthday was also today, and I almost forgot about it. She only wanted money to buy her own stuff apparently, so that was easily enough handled. Still, I would have preferred to get her a present instead. Ended up making a card at the last moment, though; I'm still amazed that it worked out OK :)

Anyways. Live8 is going to wrap up soon, so I'll watch that, maybe squeeze in some reading, and get some sleep :)

business and wimbledon subversion

Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:07:38 GMT

Nggh. I've been wrestling with subversion (the software) lately. Somehow I/it managed to get my work all mixed up. I actually thought I'd lost some days of work for a while. But it was all there, just a little shuffled. So it took a while to re-order all that, and get things back on track. But now, everything's sweet again, and I've written some little scripts for subversion to make day-to-day work really easy :)

Finally found a decent explanation of double-entry bookkeeping. Unbelievable, how simple it is, and how many over-complicated (or even incorrect) explanations I've found of it. So I'm reasonably happy with using SQL-Ledger for my accounts now, which is great, since other software like Quasar is a bit too limited. I need to read much more about this accounting stuff, though.

Got SQL-Ledger's invoice reports nicely modified, so my invoices look nice and professional too. That time I spent trying to figure out latex a while back actually turned out to be useful :)

So yeah, now that I'm not trying to do too much things at once, I'll have my evenings back by tomorrow, and I'll be able to get all my accounts sorted out. Then I get to consider whether I want to register with the government as running a company yet. Scary stuff, which I don't think I understand well enough yet, but I can't leave it for too long, or equally scary fines might apply :(

In other news, Wimbledon started today!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

So I'll be trying to fit that in somewhere too :) Radio 5 Live might help some, but I find it hard to follow radio coverage of tennis.

Looks like Esperanto is going to have to take a back seat for a while, but I'll get back to that eventually too.

There was other stuff, but it's gone :) Off to bed, I guess :)