Well part of the reason I have been so busy recently is that I have been working on becoming a Gentoo developer. It finally became official tonight and I have now joined the ranks of the dev crowd. Its going to be a big learning curve for me and I am eagerly awaiting what it will bring and hopefully contributing a lot back as well.
Aside from that I came across an interesting article the other day relating to a space weather warning. I had never heard of one before and was quite interested to read about the effects of what the highest level of a space storm can actually do. Ofcourse maybe it was just the pretty pictures that got my attention :)
Friday, May 20, 2005
Thursday, May 19, 2005
INTP
Just did a quick personality test over at similar minds. While I don't really put a lot of credit in such things it was something interesting to do while I was eating dinner. The result was not exactly surprising, and the favoured careers at this page definitely brought a smile to my face.
Work has been fairly busy and I am working hard on a lot of tech things right now so I will keep this entry short :)
Work has been fairly busy and I am working hard on a lot of tech things right now so I will keep this entry short :)
Monday, May 16, 2005
Python
Just read this article which enthused me to keep at Python. Well keep at it is something of a misnomer as I have barely (read spent 3 hours on it) looked at it due to severe time constraints. On a different note it looks like I am coming to an end to my mentoring period for Gentoo one way or another ....
While I was reading up on some of ESR's articles I stumbled upon this proposal. It strikes me as a good idea so I think I will link it off the sites that I maintain shortly.
While I was reading up on some of ESR's articles I stumbled upon this proposal. It strikes me as a good idea so I think I will link it off the sites that I maintain shortly.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Ultra portable!
Well it is finally here! My new fujitsu has arrived and I am very happy with it to date. I am have been playing around with it and am looking at windows stuff for the first time in about 4 years which is not exactly a thrilling experience I have to say but still its interesting to see how things have changed since I last looked at windows. Ofcourse I have gentoo running on it now with no problems, though I havn't had the chance to set it up just as I would like to due to work being very busy and me resurrecting a few older boxen of mine.
Aside from playing with new toys (much fun) I have been getting on top of some interesting technologies at work. In particular I have been designing and testing our IDS implementation. I have also managed to start to find a little bit more time to do some gentoo work but really at this point in time I am still not getting enough done and am going to have to make a concerted effort to catch up to where I should be at this point in the mentoring process. Bad Ben.
My weight bet has hit a snag as well. I have been reliably going to the gym at least 4 times a week, but of all weird things to happen I somehow developed a life and have been averaging about 3 social commitments a week for the last few months which has made it harder then I thought to achieve serious levels of gym going. A further, and more immediate complication, is that my scales I recently discovered a completely unreliable. I discovered this by accident as when I was standing checking my weight I moved a little bit and watched the measured weight vary by 5kg and STAY that way. Further tests showed that basically all my previous results were probably invalid and its entirely possible that I have gained weight. That said I am fairly sure I have actually lost significant amount of weight (2-4 kg) as cloths are starting to fit a lot looser and going to the gym for an hour every other day for a month or two is having SOME effect :)
Aside from playing with new toys (much fun) I have been getting on top of some interesting technologies at work. In particular I have been designing and testing our IDS implementation. I have also managed to start to find a little bit more time to do some gentoo work but really at this point in time I am still not getting enough done and am going to have to make a concerted effort to catch up to where I should be at this point in the mentoring process. Bad Ben.
My weight bet has hit a snag as well. I have been reliably going to the gym at least 4 times a week, but of all weird things to happen I somehow developed a life and have been averaging about 3 social commitments a week for the last few months which has made it harder then I thought to achieve serious levels of gym going. A further, and more immediate complication, is that my scales I recently discovered a completely unreliable. I discovered this by accident as when I was standing checking my weight I moved a little bit and watched the measured weight vary by 5kg and STAY that way. Further tests showed that basically all my previous results were probably invalid and its entirely possible that I have gained weight. That said I am fairly sure I have actually lost significant amount of weight (2-4 kg) as cloths are starting to fit a lot looser and going to the gym for an hour every other day for a month or two is having SOME effect :)
Thursday, May 5, 2005
The dentists
I have to say after todays experience I am rapidly shedding any lingering childhood fears of that most dreaded of institutions, the dentists chair. Today I went to get my "broken" tooth looked at and much to my (pleasant) surprise was told that a filling had merely fallen out and that for 35 pounds I could have it replaced. In under 10 minutes there I was being bustled out of the chair and back down to reception to pay! Needless to say both I and my bank manager are very happy about this :)
On a slightly different note I had an amusing experience in the reception as I tried to pay with my brand new credit card from First Direct. I was asked for my pin (in the UK they have a new tech called "chip and pin" which is meant to do away with signing for things) and the transaction was declined. That in itself was odd as I had only openned the PIN this morning and I was almost certain that I had it right (after all its my job to keep memorised a large amount of psuedo random numbers / words). I asked them, somewhat sheepishly (why is it I feel like a criminal when asking them to do this?) to put it through so that I could sign for it instead. The lady did that but it was declined again. Now this was surprising as I have used the card already with no problems, anyway I paid with another card and called First Direct on my walk home to find out what was going on, and to get rid of that nagging feeling that I was again about to be taken for a ride to the tune of 5k pounds like I was with my first bank account over here. After some conversations it turns out that first direct were having a problem with their "systems" and that all credit cards they had were being declined, the ETA on the fix was a "few hours sir". I hung up chuckling to myself. Can you imagine a bank anywhere else in the world where a system could fall over and NO credit card transaction were able to be processed for HOURS? Rule Brittania, Brittania rules .... something I am sure.
On a slightly different note I had an amusing experience in the reception as I tried to pay with my brand new credit card from First Direct. I was asked for my pin (in the UK they have a new tech called "chip and pin" which is meant to do away with signing for things) and the transaction was declined. That in itself was odd as I had only openned the PIN this morning and I was almost certain that I had it right (after all its my job to keep memorised a large amount of psuedo random numbers / words). I asked them, somewhat sheepishly (why is it I feel like a criminal when asking them to do this?) to put it through so that I could sign for it instead. The lady did that but it was declined again. Now this was surprising as I have used the card already with no problems, anyway I paid with another card and called First Direct on my walk home to find out what was going on, and to get rid of that nagging feeling that I was again about to be taken for a ride to the tune of 5k pounds like I was with my first bank account over here. After some conversations it turns out that first direct were having a problem with their "systems" and that all credit cards they had were being declined, the ETA on the fix was a "few hours sir". I hung up chuckling to myself. Can you imagine a bank anywhere else in the world where a system could fall over and NO credit card transaction were able to be processed for HOURS? Rule Brittania, Brittania rules .... something I am sure.
UWB
I consider myself fairly uptodate with technology, given I am a geek after all. So its always surprising to find something that sneaks under my radar and that seems to be as important / big as UWB. I was alerted to it in the last few days via some of the more obscure RSS feeds that I read and tonight actually sat down to start reading some of the articles. This stuff could be amazing! If you don't know what I am talking about then go and have a look at this article and to get more background info check out this one.
Wednesday, May 4, 2005
Toothy views
Well I had a nice long weekend with my girlfriend and some of her friends, we ended up driving down to eastbourne and then on to Beachy Head. I thoroughly recommend the spot if you crave decent views (something that I particularly miss about Sydney) as I have found it really hard to get the feeling that you are up at a decent height in England. I managed to yet again get sunburnt in mildly sunny weather, I figure that if you give me another 10 years here I will completely destroy any reputation Australians have as sun faring people!
On an unpleasant note I have somehow managed to lose 1/4 of a tooth. It seems that my neglect of not regularly going to the dentist has paid off in the negative sense and I have a strong suspicion that I will be paying out a lot for the pleasure of letting a Brittish dentist fix it. To tell the truth I am actually very nervous about seeing a Brittish dentist (or any practitioner of the medical arts) as all I have heard is horror story after horror story. Still, my manager has assured me that this one is quite good. I sincerly hope he is right.
On an unpleasant note I have somehow managed to lose 1/4 of a tooth. It seems that my neglect of not regularly going to the dentist has paid off in the negative sense and I have a strong suspicion that I will be paying out a lot for the pleasure of letting a Brittish dentist fix it. To tell the truth I am actually very nervous about seeing a Brittish dentist (or any practitioner of the medical arts) as all I have heard is horror story after horror story. Still, my manager has assured me that this one is quite good. I sincerly hope he is right.
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