Random

Nothing much has been going on of late, except for the usual staying up late, and catching up on a lot of TV. I have however, discovered the joys of a few things. Like needing multiple versions of the same program because other programs haven't gotten it together and all agreed to use the one version. I tried cleaning up my harddrive to reclaim some space (I'm a neat freak when it comes to my HD), and spent the rest of the day putting my operating system back together(I don't use Windoz, however the image illustrates the concept).

I have however discovered the joys of RSS and BitTorrent. Old news for some, way older news for others. I only got into BT after my brother decided that the internet wasn't fast enough for us at home and upgraded it 1.5MBit/sec which isn't too bad. So maybe having a MMORPG addict for a sibling isn't too bad. I also refuse to support the way commercial television destroys TV shows. So it's a fun thing to have.

RSS too is a fun toy. There have been problems with standards, however that's all settling down now, and it's convenient to have all my favorite blogs and other sites who have RSS feeds all in one handy to reach place. Made me pull out Thunderbird again.

So I am off in 9 (nearly 8) days. If you desperately want to contact me, my mother or Emily knows how to get in touch with me. But it had better be good, as they don't like us taking personnel calls. In fact the wonderful powers that be confiscate our mobiles.

So if I don't see you, or post before I leave (which has a 50/50 chance of happening), have a great 6 months. I'll see you when I get back.

[edit 25/01/07] Austin Powers is cool! Enough said. Also I'm scheduled to be finished by the 29/07/2007, so until then farewell. [/edit]

:)

If a man washes a dish and there is no-one around to see it - did it really happen??

Are the joys and merits of housework. There is really not much to say other than that about the tedious mind numbing repetition of vacuuming the same piece of carpet over and over again. Then again, if I didn't vacuum it, then the inevitable crunchyness that would occur would only cause me great pain. So it's a trade off - between the effort to vacuum, vs the effort taken to ignore (albeit painfully) the things that have been trodden into the carpet. All in all I don't really care as I'm not at my house. I'm staying at Emily's as I had to come up to the 'burbs to go see the Navy people again. It's getting closer and closer to the day when I disappear for a while. And I think it's starting to hit home for a few people what I've gotten myself into. Maybe it's the ton of paperwork I've had to fill out, and the phone calls, and so on and so forth. Maybe it's the realisation that we are indeed now in 2007 (Happy New Year by the way), so "next year" has arrived. I think the clincher for me was yesterday when I learned I that I had been booked into my "Appointment Ceremony". It's the shin-dig they have for family, and blah blah blah. Basically it's when I sign on the dotted line, and I'm in. I then of course ship out the following day, so not a lot of time to take it all in.

So as time continues it stately march onwards, I hope that people have had a good holiday break. That you have been able to perhaps deal with some issues of the past year, and that you were able to resolve, learn, and move on. Perhaps I am getting sentimental in my old age, or perhaps it's the housework getting to me. Perhaps they should recommend it to the boys in Guantanamo. Stuff everything else, get the "terrorists" - yeah those guys who haven't even had a fair trial yet to clean up the place. They'll break instantly.

:)

Have them pry XP from your cold dead hands

I recently read a very interesting article from a researcher in New Zealand (please don't hold that against him), about the true costs of upgrading to Micro$ofts Windowz Vista. Now I don't personally use Windowz for much, except the odd game. However the implications of the research presented here has effects on all users regardless of your OS of choice. Some of the material is technical, so make sure that you have Wiki close at hand to look up definitions and concepts.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt

My personal hates of Vista, having read this article are to do with Vista not allowing you to have hardware that it doesn't allow, special things called "tilt bits" which, everytime there is a slight fluctuation in the power supply, Vista will think it's being hacked, and "respond appropriately" (most likely rebooting). Finally the reintroduction of polling, a concept that would eat more CPU cycles then that kid from Oliver Twist on the 'roids. There was a reason that polling was gotten rid of. Why, oh why bring it back.

Overall it's all part of Micro$oft's design to limit choice. Yes I am an Open Source advocate. But that's MY choice. I have a friend that calls me a "penguinist commy" and does all his programming in Win32. That's alright as well, it's HIS choice. Sure we argue about which is better, in the end, we have the choice. And business people will tell you, when there is more choice, there is greater competition which lowers prices, and improves upon product quality as every company wants your money. Micro$oft is hiding their attempt to clearly limit the choice of which hardware you buy, to what you can watch/listen to on YOUR PC with their marketing hype. It's not right, and I am appalled at nVidia for one, getting into bed with Microsoft.

At the end of the day I think it has been summed up best by my brother (who is a XP user): "I'll downgrade to Vista when they pry XP from my cold dead hands" For your own benefit, read the above linked article, pass it on, educate the masses, and preserve the choice you have in regards to your PC.

:)

Would you like fries with that book?

One of the comments I hear due to the ever increasing influence of technology such as the Internet, is that I should read a book instead. Now I don't want to point a finger at a particular demographic, or be generalistic, but it really bothers me when some old person is telling me to pull myself away from a computer screen and do something "productive" - such as - reading a book. I don't necessarily see the difference if I read todays news online at The Age, or if I actually wait for the morning delivery boy to put the front page headlines through my window. Either way I am attempting to be an informed citizen. And in fact I do read books, quite a lot. There are often times when I prefer the old paperback to the computer screen, as it's easier on my eyes. And so the ever increasing argument between myself and a certain individual shall continue - or shall it??

The world of the Internet and printed information are about to collide with an invention titled - "An ATM for books". This little baby will create a book on the spot for you from the Internet. It's quite a remarkable little creation, but instead of repeating the main points here, just read the link. So what does this mean for the digital world versus the traditional printed medium. Probably not much. I doubt I will ever stop being told to "read a book". But with this new device at least I'll be able to find, print and bind a book when I want to read it. There is something about that sort of convience that appeals to me.

:)

On phobias and other matters

I find phobias a fascinating thing. Good old Wiki states that "A phobia (from the Greek φόβος "fear"), is a strong, persistent fear of situations, objects, activities, or persons." In trying to understand phobias and the effect they have on people, I have decided to share my main phobia with the rest of the world. I have needle-phobia. I don't know about you, but I can't stand the little bastards. I have been thinking about when I first started having a phobia about needles. I think it started when as a kid I had a blood test. The doctor used a plunger needle, the kind where they put it in and pull back the plunger, effectively sucking the blood out. All I remember was that it hurt like hell.

Compare that with today. The way they do blood tests to is to stick the needle in and "vacuum" it out. Much less painful. But all because it doesn't hurt so much still doesn't mean that I don't fear it like getting kicked in the groin. So why can't we rationalise our way around our phobias? Why do I get a 0300 call from a friend, that makes me drive 15 minutes to her house to deal with a spider that is smaller than my thumbnail. Phobias are indeed interesting beasts. If you have an interesting phobia, please leave a comment.

So why rant about my phobia? Well today I had another blood test for the RAN. I know that I don't have diseases, but they want to make sure. So I got jabbed. At least I got my Christmas shopping done.

If I don't get bored enough to blog before the main event, have a Merry Christmas, and safe travels.

:)

emerge -vDu blog

So you might be wondering what the title of this is all about. Well being a computer programmer, my preferred programming environment is Gentoo Linux. This is not designed to be a place for Trolls of Flammers about which is better, so all winlots and mac-a-lites, - don't start. However the reason that Gentoo is my preferred OS is because of the package management system Portage.

So while I am sitting here while Portage updates my system (and hopefully doesn't break anything like last time), I thought that I would blog. That and I forgot to mention my girlfriend in my last post. It's a rookie mistake, that I am sure that you veteran bloggers don't like to see, but I did it.

So I had better rectify my horrific mistake, and introduce my girlfriend to the whole wide world. Her name is Emily. And I don't know what else to say, so I think that this covers my mistake.

Not much has been going on. Got back from a conference run in Canberra called NTE run by AFES which was lots of fun and a great time. Been dealing with paperwork and other such matters for the RAN. That and trying to catch up on all the miscellaneous reading that I have been wanting to do. So much to do and so little time. With those fine words I think I will go to bed.

:)

On why the meek join the RAN

The subject line for this post is actually a take off of a blog by one of my former housemates jO31. He set up a blog a while ago, and while mine not be as funny as his, I thought having a blog is useful for someone joining the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). This way my family and friends and anyone else in the world can read about what I'm up to. Obviously for any ADF web crawlers out there who might discover this entry, I wont be revealing any state secrets (even though I wont know anything), so any and all KGB agents - go away now please.

So who am I. Well my name is right there on the pane next to this so I wont repeat it. What have I been doing for the past few years. Well I have been at Monash University in Clayton Australia. I have just finished a degree in Software Engineering with honours and this year I had the opportunity to co author a paper on AO Software that got published at the 21st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering. I was also involved with the Monash Christian Union, and did a whole bunch of other stuff.

So why join the RAN?? Well the profession has always appealed to me. It's really that simple. For any more detailed questions, just ask.

Well that's about it for now, so for the juicy stuff - you'll have to wait.

:)