Planet Maclab

chrisjrn's site: More from Bruce…

Christopher Neugebauer — 2012-05-12T10:45:32+00:00

Hello! Have you missed me? It’s been a while since I’ve updated you all on what’s happening in the world of PyCon Australia, so I figure it’s probably about time we did that. And it’s good that I’m doing so, because a lot of things have happened since the last time I did so!

Talks, talks, and more talks

Our Call for Proposals closed its doors on Friday 4 May, and we’ve been absolutely blown away by the level of response that we’ve got from Python developers around Australia and the rest of the world. We received 59 proposals to speak, across three categories of presentation, which is far and away the biggest response this conference has had in its short history. So, to all of you who proposed presentations, give yourselves a pat on the back.

To put this into perspective — we have approximately 30 positions that we can fit presentations into. Our review team (who are, by the way, doing an incredibly awesome job) have the mammoth task of figuring out which talks will actually make it into the conference: they’ll need to cull approximately half of the proposals that we’ve received. It’s something that we really weren’t expecting, but I think the review team are up to the task.

With this in mind, it’s going to take us a few days more than expected to sort through the proposals, and we won’t be meeting our deadline of 18 May for sending out notifications. It won’t be too much later than that, but we still apologise for the delay. If you did submit a talk, don’t worry too much about missing out on Early Bird registration rates — we’ll be extending Early Bird pricing through to June 30 for everyone who has submitted a talk. I hope this is OK by you!

We want you to come to our conference

And the best way to make sure that you can actually come to the conference is by signing up for our Early Bird registrations! These have been open for just over two weeks now; and with three weeks left to go, just over a third of our available early bird tickets have been sold. Our early bird registrations represent a substantial discount on our normal registration rates, and they also guarantee you a spot at our conference dinner (which is both space-limited, and is seriously not to be missed).

Early bird regos are available for the first 60 Enthusiast or Professional tickets sold; all the relevant info is at our website.

… and that means all of you!

We’ll be reprising the very successful gender diversity grants programme that PyCon Australia launched with Google last year; in a much-expanded form. Last year these grants helped many deserving women attend the conference with subsidised registration, and some travel allowance. This year, the grants programme will offer travel assistance to many more deserving female delegates. We’ll reveal more details later, but needless to say, we’re very excited.

fin.

Well, that’s it for now, I hope you’re as excited about the conference as I am. It’s shaping up to be really quite special, and I can’t wait to share more of our plans with you. See you in August, and get registering!

chrisjrn's site: PyCon Australia early bird registrations now open!

Christopher Neugebauer — 2012-04-26T05:59:12+00:00

For fear of spamming EVERYWHERE with the news, I include just the tl;dr:

tl;dr: PyCon Australia early bird registrations are now open! Find out more at http://2012.pycon-au.org/register/prices, including details of our accommodation programme.

The full media release on the opening of registration can be found at http://2012.pycon-au.org/media/news/15

Hope we see you all registered soon!

chrisjrn's site: Talk — Android: The year of Linux on the palmtop?

Christopher Neugebauer — 2012-04-19T07:38:48+00:00

Here’s my talk from the Hobart TasLUG meeting yesterday (18 April 2012) on the features of Android from the point of view of a Linux user — both from a technical perspective, and issues arising from Android’s unique status as an Open Source OS for cellphones. If you want to download the video, you can download it, or watch it in the embedded format later in this post… Enjoy!

Dave: Fitbit Ultra

2012-04-17T03:48:46+00:00

See the full gallery on Posterous

Ordered this from Amazon, arrived today. Another gadget! Basically a wireless pedometer with altimeter as well as detecting movement pattern ie sleep.

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Dave: Game of Thrones, the graphic novel

2012-04-16T03:58:00+00:00

See the full gallery on Posterous

This arrived today, more fodder for my growing obsession with GoT!

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chrisjrn's site: OMFG! OSCON!

Christopher Neugebauer — 2012-04-11T00:03:22+00:00

Since I enjoyed presenting on Android development at last year’s OSCON in Portland, it seems as though I shall be returning to do it again this year!

I’m presenting Android-Fu: Awesome apps for Ice Cream Sandwich and beyond at OSCON 2012. It’ll be on Tuesday 17 July at 9:00am, and will be a comprehensive look at things that modern Android tutorials should teach you, but tend not to.

On a related note, I’ll be travelling through the USA a bit on either side of OSCON. I’ll be in New York from (late on) Monday 9 July through Friday 13 July, and Seattle from Saturday 21 July through Monday 23 July. So if you happen to be reading this and would like to direct me at coffee whilst I’m there, let me know!

chrisjrn's site: More pontification on alcohol at conferences

Christopher Neugebauer — 2012-04-08T02:11:17+00:00

This post started off as a reply to a comment (by “Alan”) on my previous post on this topic, but it got a bit long-winded, and raised a few clarifications of my own viewpoints on this matter. So it’s turned into a post of its own.

So, before I start this, nothing against the organisers or team surrounding OSCON. I loved my experience speaking, and attending the main conference event, and I’m coming back to OSCON to speak again this year. The reason why I pick on it is because it’s the one large American conference that I’ve been to, and it provides a nice contrast to the grassroots-style conferences that I’ve been involved with back home. It also exhibits some very specific examples of fostering that “culture of exclusion” that could be fixed with a few minor policy changes.

So, without further ado, here’s me addressing the points in Alan’s comment.

Could it be that this and the “brogrammer” culture is a problem that is more present at JSConf and Ruby conferences than Python?

I certainly agree that this culture does peak around various types of communities — for instance, Ryan’s post on the “Culture of Exclusion” speaks very specifically of JSConf and various Ruby groups, and in my own experience this sort of culture doesn’t seem to be prevalent at PyCons. However, to say that it’s attached to a small subset of communities is probably quite unfair — OSCON is very much a multi-community conference, but there’s still quite the drinking culture attached to it. Likewise, it seems to me that the Ruby community in Australia isn’t quite as drinking-centric as the examples that Ryan put forward.

You don’t hear anything about sexist COBOL programmers or late night binging at Java conferences from what I can tell. Even PHP seems to have grown up.

I think the likelihood of these sorts of things to occur really does depend on the level of “community” that is attached to a given language or technology. As an example here, people doing Java coding are almost certainly doing so because they work for in a corporate environment. Ruby and JS people are doing so because they work in a “startup” environment, or they’re doing it for fun. The companies that form the founding groups around a conference will often bring their culture along with them. It’s interesting to consider why this doesn’t happen so much at Python conferences. I don’t have any particular answers here — indeed, it’s quite the paradox, because I’d have considered Python to be more of a “startup” type language, and one would assume that would bring the “startup” culture into it. Perhaps it speaks of the values of those who started gatherings for Python coders?

Are these excesses a problem at conferences in general? Is this an American thing? Or even a Ruby/JS thing?

Is it a problem with conferences or communities, or is it a much more widespread cultural issue (as in e.g. American youth culture) that has just become more visible for us recently?

Excess is something that needs to be managed — it’s very easy for a conference organiser to say “yes, you can provide an open bar at this event” to a sponsor, and sponsors get quite an amount of good will from it (free alcohol doesn’t upset people, non-drinkers won’t speak up). It’s also pretty clear to me that if an open bar is offered, there’ll be a group of people who will take it up, regardless of the community that centres around the conference.

So the conferences that suffer from this sort of problem are the ones which either don’t have a policy of limitation of alcohol sponsorship, or those that actively encourage a culture of drinking (the sort of things that Ryan Funduk talks about in his article). I doubt there’d be open bars at any conference if there weren’t sponsors who were willing to fund them.

The onus is therefore on conference organisers to make sure that they don’t encourage binge drinking. In particular, this involves limiting the amount of alcohol sponsorship a conference is willing to accept — we at PyCon Australia are doing this by only providing tokens for drinks at our alcohol sponsored events (with the exception of at the dinner, where the open bar is time-limited, and comes with food and other entertainment).

What distinguishes conferences and communities that have this problem from those that do not?

Conferences can send out a message about this culture: For example, offering OSCON offers free attendance to the drinking events, but not to the main content of the conference; this can be compared with Linux.conf.au, where you have to pay extra to attend the drinking session. The contrasts between these arrangements provide quite the subtext between the values of the two conferences — intentional or not. In my view, OSCON providing such a ticket says that the “base level” experience of the conference is one where you go to all the parties, and the talks and tutorials are the “added extras”. For LCA, it’s the other way around.

So in summary, there are plenty of factors that surround the discussion of alcohol at conferences. I think it’s an important discussion to have, not least because it presents as a diversity argument in very much the same way as the gender diversity argument has presented itself over the last few years — conferences should always be looking at the messages they send out about the communities they wish to foster, and ensuring that they’re inclusive towards everyone in that culture.

chrisjrn's site: Do Australian tech conferences suffer from “A Culture of Exclusion”? How do we avoid it?

Christopher Neugebauer — 2012-04-06T07:06:05+00:00

I spotted this interesting article by Ryan Funduk, on the culture of exclusion generated by piss-up parties at tech conferences — primarily at conferences in America, but the issue is certainly prevalent in other places.

I attended OSCON last year, and whilst OSCON is clearly not as bad as the type of events that have been highlighted in this writeup, there were still plenty of events that were promoted by the conference and their sponsors, but clearly served only as an opportunity to booze up some delegates. In fact, there was at least one such party advertised in the conference schedule each night — peaking on the Wednesday where there were three such conference parties advertised on the conference schedule, cleverly paced for two hours so that delegates could move on to each of the parties as the previous one wound up.

I personally feel as though these sorts of events have no place being actively promoted by the conference schedule. There are several good reasons for this that are all detailed in the parent article, but they all boil down to the fact that not everyone drinks. Parties where the key attraction is drinking only attracts those who drink. By advertising such events as part of the programme, they create cliques within the conference community that aren’t defined by the community that the conference serves to support.

Worse still is when such events are not run with alternatives available, because this strongly promotes the subtext that drinking is the only way to socialise at the conference. So a delegate who doesn’t drink will not fit in to any part of the conference, because there is no well-established way for non-drinkers to find each other.

As an active participant in tech conferences in Australia, it’s important to reflect on criticisms of such conferences in other countries, as well as here, to make sure that we’re providing a culture that actively encourages any delegate who chooses to attend — regardless of age, gender or lifestyle choice.

In the case of conferences run in Australia, I don’t believe that the issues of Alcohol-driven events are near as much of a problem as they are in America.

At Linux.conf.au, since the demise of the Google Party (an event very much brought over by American employees of Google), I don’t think I’ve seen a single event associated with the conference where drinking was the sole purpose of the event. One exception of this is the Professional Delegates Networking Session, however, I have always seeked to run a non-alcohol driven alternative against it. As a non-drinker for most of the LCAs I’ve been to, I don’t think I’ve lost out by not participating in the drinking.

At PyCon Australia, we’ve been careful to not offer up any events with an open tab — companies who want to sponsor alcohol have to do so in a way that ensures that the amounts provided are limited, and any foray into dangerous territory comes at the expense of the delegates. There is no conference event planned without a defined activity, and in every case, the presence of a bar at the event is clearly a distant second in terms of priorities for the organisers.

One of the great successes over the past few years in Australia has been ensuring that toxic cultures within the tech community aren’t tolerated. I think it’s imporant that we look at everything we do with a critical eye. I’m sure that our record on avoiding the fostering of an alcohol culture at our events isn’t spotless, and it’s one that we should look over with as critical an eye as we use to look over issues of gender or sexuality.

It’s definitely my intention to do this as I continue to put together PyCon — constantly looking at what we can do as Australian-based conference organisers do to ensure that the culture of alcohol doesn’t take over from the culture of the technology that we’re gathering for?

Update: I’ve written a further post on this topic. Do try it.

chrisjrn's site: Talk: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Java!

Christopher Neugebauer — 2012-04-01T06:24:18+00:00

Hark! My TUCS Tech Talk for this semester is an attempt to show the connections between Java as a programming and software technology, and the technology that followed it.

You can view it at the TUCS Blip.tv page or in the embedded player above. It even works with youtube-dl

Tony's WWDC Photos: 2009-06-11 WWDC Bash

2012-03-16T22:51:18+00:00

Recent album activity (12 new items). Visit 2009-06-11 WWDC Bash...

chrisjrn's site: A personal history of TUCS

Christopher Neugebauer — 2012-03-13T10:01:59+00:00

After three years in the job, I’ve finally relinquished the role of President of the University of Tasmania Computing Society (better known as TUCS). The years I spent as President spanned the last year and a half of my time at uni, and the first year and a half outside of that life — it’s something that’s been a pretty constant thread over the past few years, and it’d be a shame if I didn’t take a moment to dwell on my time in the role.

My first year representing TUCS was 2008: I’d come back to uni having attended my first Linux.conf.au in Melbourne, fresh with the knowledge that it would be held in Hobart the following January. The previous computing society at UTAS, the Internet Developers Society had elected to change its name at the previous year’s AGM, and with that new start, I decided to run for the exec of the society. I didn’t really have any aims at the time I ran, save for making the Uni computing community closer to the Open Source movement that I knew and loved at the time.

It was with that that I decided to organise the first of the TUCS Tech Talks. It was a talk by myself on introductory Python. I think I spent the best part of two weeks writing, tweaking and rehearsing that talk, and learning how to get screen recordings going. To my astonishment, the talk was amazingly well-recieved: the room was packed, lots of questions were asked. But much more than the success of my own talk, what astonished me was that people at the barbecue after the talk were telling me about how they wanted to present their own. And a few weeks later, so it was. And the following semester, we had talks every other week, on topics ranging from StarCraft strategy to iPhone development — the advent of tech talks at TUCS exposed a strong enthusiasm for sharing knowledge with others, and it brought our society into great stead with students, staff and the broader tech community in Hobart.

It was at the end of that year that I nominated as President, and happily, I was elected so. And when January rolled about, Linux.conf.au came to our home campus. Whilst TUCS wasn’t really involved with the event as much as I’d have liked, I did spot an opportunity for TUCS to contribute a small part — we ran a barbecue for student and hobbyist delegates to LCA as a way to help our members to engage with the rest of Australia’s tech community. This ended up being the first Unprofessional Delegates’ Networking Session, and it’s an event that I have continued to run at LCA ever since — for the 2012 conference in Ballarat, we brought the UnPDNS format back to the format that we ran for the first time in 2009, and the mood was as good this year as it was in 2009. It’s an event that I’m proud of starting, and the event happened because TUCS members contributed so much to getting that first UnPDNS organised in 2009.

Our Tech Talk schedule improved substantially that year, too. We had the first of our talks from then-Ph.D student, Jonathan Adamczewski on development for PS3 devices. He’s presented almost every semester since then, and his topics have been both diverse and exceedingly in-depth on whatever topic he chose to cover — my personal favourite was a talk showing how “Hello World” programs actually work on Linux systems. We also had the first of our talks by Paul Fenwick — that year, he packed out the tiny seminar room we were using for tech talks with his fascinating insight into the info you could glean from the Facebook API.

The other great discovery that arose from the talks series at TUCS was our frequent series of Lightning Talks — once per semester, students came to share three minutes of whatever insanity they decided they wanted to talk about. We’ve had talks on everything from Alex Berry’s experiments with the postal service; to self-devised esoteric programming languages; to buyers guides for headphones. These talks turned out to be a lot more fun than I could ever have hoped for, and they’ve been a great show of the minds that the society has attracted over the years.

And so it was that last year, I found myself away from Hobart on a very frequent basis, and I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t contribute to TUCS on the level that I had in previous years. Though I tried to give up the post last year, with nobody to replace me, I found myself in situ for a third year. The time I did have to contribute to the role of President last year was spent finding and preparing suitable replacements to come on board the next year. Thankfully, new members with huge amounts of drive started to appear — we ran end-of-semester events for the first time since 2009. We ran an end-of-year Quiz Night, which was a huge success for the society, and showed that the society had strength and enthusiasm to continue on for years to come.

Of course, my own contribution as President over those years did not a society make. The execs who I served with over the years made the society great. The treasurers, Michael Ford, Luke Hovington and Matt D’Orazio all helped make sure that the society was profitable every year I was involved, and keeping on top of grants from the Union. Matt, along with Tim Nugent made sure that the LAN parties that IDS had run for years before continued on well into the TUCS era. Luke Hovington, our tireless sysadmin, kept our old box alive on duck tape and twine, and is overseeing the transition to a new server box with Matt. And Eloise Ducky, who went from being the squeaky year 11 student who showed up on societies day in 2009 to being the person whipping me and the rest of the society into shape as 2011 came to a close.

And so, my term in charge of the society has come to an end — I feel that my hope of creating a community in which students could share their love of computing with others was met; along with keeping the society as bridge between students and university staff, and the IT industry more broadly. They’re goals that a Computing Society at a university should hold at the forefront of what they do, and I think it’s the reason why TUCS is held in high regard.

I hope the years that I spent in the society have changed it for the better — it’s been a lot of hard work, but it’s work I’ve enjoyed, and it’s a role that I’ve greatly relished filling. And thanks to all of the TUCS members who elected me to the role in the first place, but saw enough in me to re-elect me to the role for the following two years. I hope you think it’s been worth it.

Whilst I wasn’t the first President of the society, I was the last. The AGM last year removed the roles of President and Vice-President in favour of holding two Co-Presidents’ offices. I’m sure Eloise, along with Ben Lea will fill these roles with great enthusiasm and with the goal of making the society the best it can be for its members (take care of my baby for me, OK?). Whilst I’m staying on in the executive as a general representative for the rest of this year, it’s going to be interesting to not be in charge of the place.

Photo credits: Adam Harvey, various photos by myself.

chrisjrn's site: Speak at PyCon Australia 2012

Christopher Neugebauer — 2012-03-03T03:21:53+00:00

February was a pretty big month for PyCon Australia organisation, we finally got our new website up and running, and our Call for Proposals is finally open. We’ve even got our first keynote presenter lined up (hush hush).

Of course, opening a Call for Proposals doesn’t make a conference just happen. We need people to submit talks now. In particular, we’d like for you to submit something. Even better, our Call for Topics (which has been open since January) has turned up some great trends for what people want to see. Perhaps you have something to say on one of these topics? We want to hear from you!

In-depth techniques with common Python libraries

Have you done interesting things with Python Libraries? Perhaps you’ve solved a difficult application design using Django; or maybe you’ve done awesome hacks with SQLAlchemy? Our delegates want to know just what can be done with those libraries that are out there in the wild — help them take the next step in enhancing their skills.

Testing

Few things are more important in the application development process. Thorough testing means that you can be confident that your code works, and well-written tests ensure that things don’t break when you make changes. But talks on testing have been sorely lacking at PyCon Australia in the past. Help show our delegates how to make code that’s testable using the best tools available to Python developers.

Alternative implementations

Sure, CPython may be the reference implementation of Python, and it may be what nearly everyone coding python uses, but it’s not the only version of Python out there. The PyPy project is working wonders at making Python code run fast (so that it can compete with state-of-the-art JavaScript VMs), and the Jython and IronPython projects are helping to bring the world of Python to Java and .NET developers. Show PyCon Australia that the Python world doesn’t stop at CPython.

Live Code Reviews

One of the best ways to learn about how something works is to take it apart and see what’s inside. Open source projects let us deeply study the internals of the tools and libraries that we use every day. Show our delegates just how their favourite Python tools work, suggest improvements, and perhaps find new contributors to your projects.

Forward-porting to Python 3

Currently, two incompatible versions of Python are competing for your development time — Python 2, which is the old version of Python with flaws you’ve come to know and accept; and the all-new Python 3, which is easier to code with and more consistent. The problem is that all the code you depend upon is written in Python 2. Help speed up the migration to the new version of Python by showing how to forward-port libraries to Python 3.

Now, submit something!

So, now that you know what people want to see at PyCon Australia 2012, perhaps you have an idea about what you can present. Head over to our Call for Proposals and submit a talk for us. The call closes on Friday May 4.

If you still need more ideas, PyCon Australia 2011 presenter, Daniel Greenfeld has a list of Python conference talks he’d like to see. And if you have more ideas that you’d like someone else to present, our Call for Topics is still open.

Can’t wait to see your proposals coming in!

Josh: Ignore this post title

admin — 2012-02-23T11:11:23+00:00

Hi!

To misquote a few emails I’ve seen recently: “This email is about being honest and keeping things in the open. If you don’t care about emails in which the writer is being totally candid, then you can stop reading now.”

So, on to the being totally candid thing. 10 out of 10 points to me if I go through with hitting “send” on this, though my curiosity about any response is about to overpower my irrational fears any moment now.

I really like you, you’re an amazing and wonderful person. A talented mix of intellect, sensibility, adventurousness, good looks, cromulent taste in beers, and loads of other exquisite qualities I probably haven’t even observed yet. Your hair probably smells unbelievably good. Yes, I admit I’m pretty smitten, and I don’t mind it at all I can’t help but spontaneously look about and hope to see you there, smiling, nor can I help writing an odd-sounding email immediately before bedtime. Please let’s do more of the you & me thing.

Don’t worry, I’m not about to start constructing a secret shrine in your honour, put you on a pedestal, or start stalking you around the building, as hilarious as all that would be. No, the point of this email is, simply, to void all awkwardness, to provide a relief from reasonable business-related emails, and to get some satisfaction out of exercising a little penmanship. Plus, I think you deserve a good ego stroke what with all the stress recently. Relax!

I don’t know if any of these feelings of admiration are reciprocated, but it doesn’t matter. There shall be zero awkwardness on my part no matter what happens. Is that…clear? At minimum, let’s continue to be good friends

Goodnight,

Josh

I spent too much time writing this to not blog it. Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing.

Hovo: Best man speech

Hovo — 2012-02-11T12:14:37+00:00

Dear internet, please send comments to lhovo on twitter..
Thanks

As we gather to honour the marriage of Anthony and Clarissa, I look out over a sea of familiar faces. Many I recognise from the years Anthony and I attended University. Their presence here speaks volumes about the kind of people Anthony and Clarissa are. When your university friends travel thousands of miles to be with you on the most important day of your life, it can only mean one thing: they heard about the free beer.

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Luke. I’ve been Anthony’s best friend for nearly 10 years.

We meet on the first day of University; and moved on through the ranks together to the final graduation day.

Throughout our university days we shared our passion for the great outdoors, this includes hiking sailing and my favorite activity, setting up wireless networks in tall trees.

Communication is one of the most important thing in a marriage, Anthony and Clarissa have always been know to practice there communication skills in the car all the time.
As anyone who has travel with Anthony and lived can testify.

So although I’m not actually married myself [turn to bridesmaids], I thought it might be helpful if I offered them each a little piece of advice.

Clarissa: you can either tell Anthony to do something or tell him how to do something. But please, not both.

And Anthony: Just think, if it weren’t for marriage, men would go through life thinking they had no faults at all.

[[ Toast ]]

May your love be modern enough to survive the times, but old fashioned enough to last forever.

I’m sure you’re going to be happy together, and I speak for everybody here when I say I wish you both the very best for your future life together.

chrisjrn's site: LCA2012: “Android is Not vi – User Experience for Geeks”

Christopher Neugebauer — 2012-01-24T23:04:08+00:00

Paris Buttfield-Addison and I co-presented a talk at Linux.conf.au in Ballarat recently. The topic was on designing mobile apps that don’t suck on Android. The talk was pretty well received, the audience attentive and engaged (as evidenced by the fact that they heckled), and it was probably one of the better talks that Paris and I have co-presented.

The video of the talk is available as an ogv movie file, alternatively, the YouTube version is embedded below.

Alex B: Tokyo and Trains (東京と電車)

alex — 2012-01-21T22:26:23+00:00

I went to Japan and Korea over Christmas for a bunch of reasons. In short it was really, really awesome.

I stayed in 2 different capsule hotels. Capsules are two to a column (one top, one bottom). They come with a TV and you close them with a blind (but if people snore you can still kinda hear). It costs around $35 a night.

The first was aimed solely at Japanese businessmen and I probably couldn’t get in without asking in Japanese. This was quite good but annoying that lockers were not reserved during the day so I had to transfer my stuff to a different coin locker and back. The second was more touristy, bookable in english, had westerners but in return was louder, more expensive, and weirdly slightly smaller so I didn’t quite fit. There’s only public baths at both. Male only.

I found a banana vending machine.

Bananas.

I filled in some gaps in Tokyo from my last trip, where I walked all the way around the edges of central Tokyo. I walked to Yotsuya, in the center of that. It feels like the middle of nowhere though – as much as inner Tokyo can. Only 3 hours walking this time -_-.

Some of my friends from Tasmania were going to a comic, anime, and cosplay event in Tokyo called Comiket which attracts about half a million people. This turned out to be really awesome. I wasn’t brave or dedicated enough for the 5 hour lines for popular items, but I still found it really awesome wandering around taking pictures and searching for things.

Me + a small part of Comiket

Cosplay!

I got to try working at a Tokyo office, stayed at a Japanese home (my friends are awesome), went drinking with other foreigners in Shibuya, caught up with many friends, met new ones, missed out on meeting some I really wanted to, did much karaoke, saw Mount Fuji from the center of Tokyo, caught a single whiff of falling snow in Andong, got through some basic conversation in Korean, and had a bunch of other unforgettable experiences.

Frozen stream in Korea

Yoyogi Park, Tokyo

Kamakura, near Tokyo

Kamakura Shrine

Hovo: Email Scam

Hovo — 2012-01-14T19:53:01+00:00

Email Scammers are getting cunning,
This one almost got me the other day and I consider myself to able to spot a fraudulent email from a mile away.
To prevent others falling into the same trap I thought I would write a short piece on the events that almost got me.

This attack started with a Facebook instant message.

Friend –
Hello
How are you doing??

Me –
yea, getting there.. yourself?

Friend –
Glad you are here luke
Am in some king of deep mes here

Me –
huh?

Friend –
Facebook is acting up here…Please can i have your email

Me –
–insert email address here–

Friend –
I will send you an email now and explain what am going through
OK?

Friend –
My email is blue_green00998
Ok?

Me –
ok, about to leave work, will read it soon though

This is what the email said..

Hi,
How you doing?my family and I made a trip to Philippine unannounced some days back,Unfortunately for us we got messed up in another country,stranded in Philippine,fortunately passport was back in our hotel room. It was a bitter experience and i was hurt on my right hand,but would be fine.I am sending you this message because i don’t want anyone to panic,i want you to keep it that way for now.

our return flight leaves in a few hours but we are having troubles sorting out the hotel bills, wondering if you could loan us some money to sort out the hotel bills and also take a cab to the airport about (1,550 dollars).

I have been to the police and embassy here,but they aren’t helping issues,I have limited means of getting out of here,i have canceled my credit cards already and made a police report,I won’t get a new credit card number till I get back home! So I really need your help.

You could wire whatever you can spare to my name and location via Western union:

Name: –Removed For Privacy–
Location :Location :54B Banawe Street:City:Manila:Country:Philippine
Amount:(1,000 pounds)

Get back to me with the details,would def refund your money once i get back you can count on that,below are the details needed for me to pick up the money with my passport

MTCN:
Amount Sent:

I await your prompt response.

After checking out the exchange rate and starting some background checking, I was about to ring a few people to see if the story held any water when I received another message from Facebook.

Friend –
hey mate.
wtf is going on here? looks like my page might have got hacked or something. disregard anything that was said in this. weird as.

hope all is well otherwise tho.

So what do you do when you have a scammer on the other end..
Well I though I would have a bit of fun..

So I email him back..

Me –
Hi mate,
I have transferred the money into your bank.
It should arrive instantly as we are with the same bank of course

Have a safe trip home..

Him –
Luke thanks for the mail I need you to go to the western union to get the money transfer How soon as you get the money done you can email me the western union details (MTCN)

Me –
Can you transfer the money back then?
I will create a transfer when it arrives..

Cheers

Him –
Thanks for the mail. Luke i have not getting any Money here I can get any money through bank here is only transfer they do here in Manila

I will refund your money as soon as i get back tomorrow.

I owe you a lot Luke

Ok so by now I think he has wised up a bit (one would hope) and he wont be getting my money..
If you do get something like this, report it..
Though I lost nothing besides time someone else could fall for the same trap.

Here are two links that I used to report the case to the authorities..
https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/content/index.phtml/tag/reportascam/
http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/reporting_to_ISPs.php

Take Home Message.

Do some research, call friend and relatives to see if the message holds waterSuss out the spelling and grammar. Look at the example above it’s all over the placeDONT transfer money to unknown places or Bank accounts.KEEP YOUR PASSWORDS PRIVATE! – Dont type your password into a box that looks like Facebook for example, this is a easy way for scammers to gain access to your account. Creating a fake facebook login page is easy and they gain access to your username and password. If you find you did type your password in a unknown site, PLEASE PLEASE change your password.

I have become a bit more wiser with this scam, I hope people can learn from my experience and become wiser with online security..

The account running this scam is
blue_green00998@yahoo.com
I have found out by talking to the scammer that he uses the same account but changes the name frequently to match the person his impersonating..

Chris: PyCon Australia 2012 – Call for Topics now open

Christopher Neugebauer — 2012-01-10T22:38:38+00:00

In case you missed the news, PyCon Australia is being held on August 18th and 19th in Hobart, Tasmania. Like the first two PyCon Australia conferences, 2012 hopes to be full of presentations, tutorials and panel sessions from experts and core developers of the Python programming language, as well as the Python libraries and frameworks that you rely on for your work.

It’s time for us to start shaping the conference programme for 2012, and we need your help. We want to know what topics you want to see covered at PyCon Australia, or which presenters you think can help make our conference perfect for you.

If you’re already convinced, pop over to http://tinyurl.com/pyconau2012-cft and fill out our Call for Topics form. If not, read on!

Oh, still reading? Let see…

PyCon Australia is running a Call for Topics. This is like the reverse of a traditional Call for Proposals: instead of proposing a presentation, you can propose a topic that you’d like to see a presentation on at the conference, or possibly a presenter that you really want to see present. PyCon US have been doing this for a long time, it helps ensure that their conference attracts the best possible presenters. There’s a couple of reasons why you should help us out:

See the presenters you want to see

We’re planning on putting out our usual call for proposals in February 2012, but we need to make sure that the best possible presenters submit proposals to PyCon Australia. Our delegates, like you, want to enhance their skills in Python with every session that they attend. Our CfP can’t reach everyone, and even then not everyone who sees the CfP will think that they’re good enough to present at a conference — getting an invitation to present can be a pretty good motivator!

Learn about the tools that you want to use

One great reason to come to a Python conference is to increase your skillset in the tools and frameworks that you use in your day-to-day work. Perhaps there’s a new library that you’re considering using? Nominating it as a presentation topic for PyCon Australia will increase the chances it being covered in the conference. If you don’t know of an expert in the field, don’t worry. We can find one.

Heard enough?

Great! We can’t want to hear your suggestions. Just head over to our call for Topics form, and send in your ideas. Every idea can help make this conference perfect for you.

Josh: The Accumulation of Stuff, and the Souls of Objects

admin — 2012-01-10T03:48:32+00:00

Exhaustion of resources has got to be the most annoying facet of having All Of The Irons In The Fire.

Things I want that are at a premium right now:

Time
Space

That’s mostly it. Health is back up, and I have good feelings about future romance.

Here’s how I propose to acquire space: spend time shedding belongings. The less I have, the less I have to move around and care for. The other half of the equation is time. I can spend the time now, it seems, because of imminent criticality: not so much imminent travelling as imminent desire to grab a hold on the reins of change yet again.

So what to do with all my old stuff?

Garage sale? Donations? Storage?

How could possibly I do that to my precious belongings?!

These things have history. Everything. Every tiny scrap of paper, every useless outmoded electrical component, every sidelined project and every broken thing that’s not too broken for me to bin it in a fit of sensibility. These aren’t just objects, possessions or belongings. They’re Objects With Souls. Especially the heavy, bulky, cumbersome, fiddly, irregular, broken, storage-challenging, fragile, or delicate items. Annoyingly, they seem to have the most character of all.

Perhaps there’s some kind of Hoarders Anonymous I could go to. But alas, I’m out of time. Publish!

Chris: PyCon Australia 2012 starts here

Christopher Neugebauer — 2012-01-10T03:00:08+00:00

So one thing I forgot to mention on this blog is that I’ve taken over the reins of PyCon Australia for the 2012 and 2013 conferences. After spending two formative years in Sydney, under the direction of Tim Ansell, Richard Jones et al., we’re taking the conference south to Hobart, Tasmania. We’ve got a great team, consisting of myself, Joshua Hesketh and Matthew D’Orazio, and our papers committee is being led up once again by Richard Jones.

So, what can you look forward to? Well, here’s what we know so far.

We’re holding PyCon Australia around the weekend of August 18 and 19 2012. Our venue is the Wrest Point Convention centre in Sandy Bay. We’re really excited about our choice of venue — as well as offering us perfectly-sized rooms for our conference, the wide variety of spaces in the complex allow us to bring all of the traditional PyCon Australia events — CodeWars, the sprints and the conference itself — under the same roof for the first time.

Wrest Point is situated on the shoreline of the River Derwent, and this not only admits excellent views from the conference venue, but will also enable us to run some truly memorable social events, including the conference dinner, which we hope to share more details about shortly.

Our venue also lets us offer accommodation across a very wide range of budgets (starting around $124/room/night) to our delegates — this is not just a nominated conference hotel, it’s in the same building complex as the conference venue. This means that delegates can stay on-site for the entirety of the conference. We think this will prove very popular, especially amongst delegates sticking around for the conference sprints.

For students and those travelling on a budget — we plan on keeping the conference affordable: there’ll still be heavily discounted student tickets, and we’ll announce budget accommodation options when registration opens.

Finally, you might be wondering how you can help make PyCon Australia the perfect conference for you? Well, in the coming week, we’ll be opening a Call for Topics. This is an opportunity for you, as a potential PyCon Australia delegate, to nominate both topics and presenters that you’d like to see at the conference. By nominating presentations, you can help ensure that PyCon Australia can help you enhance your skills and increase your knowledge of Python.

Of course, if you have something that you could present at PyCon Australia, we’d love to hear from you as well. We’ll be opening a traditional call for presentations during February.

So, that’s it for now. I’ll be sure to keep you up-to-date on our progress as we seek to put on the best Python Conference that Australia can offer. If you’ve got something to ask, feel free to drop a comment, either here, on Twitter, or on our Google+ page — we’ll get back to you as quickly as possible!

(Photos: “Wrest Point” by JJ Harrison, CC-BY-SA; “View of Hobart CBD” by Aaroncrick, CC-BY-SA)

Hovo: Woodford Folk Festival

Hovo — 2012-01-05T10:42:56+00:00

My first Woodford Folk Festival, the shear size of the festival alone made it a worth while event!
There were many artists playing at any one time so choosing the type of music you wanted to listen to was sometimes a challenge.
Anyways I will have to go again and next time take more pics.
Here are a few I took of some of the stages and the closing ceremony (There are some weird creatures roaming around)
[Show as slideshow]

Bnut: Setting XCode 4.0 Environment Variables from a Script

therealbnut — 2012-01-01T05:08:33+00:00

I have struggled for quite a while with XCode 4, it is excellent for Cocoa development, but if you’re trying to do anything lower level I often find myself pining after XCode 3.x or wanting to use a Makefile or something instead. However there are many advantages to an IDE, like code completion and integrated debugging tools, so it’s always nice to use things how they are designed. However there are some things XCode 4 does not do nicely, this article describes one such thing and the solution I’ve come up with. I don’t think XCode 3.x did this particular thing well either, so perhaps my solution might actually be useful to someone else.

The Problem

Often I want a bit more control over how I compile and link things than XCode allows. Tools like llvm-config allow you to get the compiler settings for your local build of llvm api, which is very useful. If I run something like:

llvm-config --ldflags

Then the command will output something like:

-L/usr/local/lib -lpthread -lm

To use this with XCode what you might consider doing is setting the OTHER_LD_FLAGS environment variable (“Other Linker Flags” in the Build Settings) to something like this:

`llvm-config --ldflags`

However if you look in the build transcript (Expanding the link section in the Navigator Log, command+7), you will find that it puts double quotation marks around the space separated parts of the command and ld is forced to interpret it as a file. I have tried for hours to fix this, on many different occasions, but I could not find a satisfactory portable solution. That is until now.

The Solution

The solution in short is to create an Xcode Configuration file from a script build phase and then set that as the base configuration for all of your targets dependent on the build settings. You can do this in “5 Simple Steps”!

Step 1

This script will create the xcode configuration file in your project directory, place it in a script build phase in your project. Make sure that you do this before the “Compile Sources” phase so it is made before the settings are needed.

Automatically Generating the XCode Configuration File

Of course this script only applies to llvm, but I will put it here in case anyone wants it:

LLVM_XCCONFIG="llvm.xcconfig"
LLVM_CFLAGS=`/usr/local/bin/llvm-config --cflags`
LLVM_LDFLAGS=`/usr/local/bin/llvm-config --ldflags`" "`/usr/local/bin/llvm-config --libs cbackend jit x86 linker`
echo "// Configuration file for LLVM settings, generated as a build phase." > $LLVM_XCCONFIG
echo "LLVM_CFLAGS = $LLVM_CFLAGS" >> $LLVM_XCCONFIG
echo "LLVM_LDFLAGS = $LLVM_LDFLAGS" >> $LLVM_XCCONFIG

Step 2

Build the project and the XCode Configuration file should be created, add this file to the project. If you’re not sure how to do this you can find it in Finder and then drag it into the project’s file navigator (Or by pressing command+option+a, and selecting the file).

Add the XCode Configuration file to the project

Step 3

Now you have to set this configuration file as the base configuration of each target that uses it, to do this select the project in the file navigator. Selecting the project if the target is selected and then go to the Info tab. Within the info tab set the configuration file to the file you just added for each relevant target.

Setting the Target's base Configuration File

Step 4

Now all you need to do is use the new environment variables in your project settings, of course you could have called them OTHER_LDFLAGS or similar to avoid this step, but I thought it was cleaner to do it this way.

Using the new Environment Variables in the the Build Settings

Step 5

Build your project and hopefully everything is working as you wanted it to.

Edit (4 March 2012)

I recently made some changes to the script to only update the xcconfig when changes are made, I’m not sure if this is the best way to do it, but it works for me. By moving the parameters to a separate file you can check the date modified on it and the xcconfig to know when the xcconfig needs updating.

I also specified each file in the appropriate script input/output section using the same paths as in the script, I think these two actions prevent unnecessary rebuilds.

The new script:

LLVM_XCCONFIG_FILE="${PROJECT_DIR}/llvm-config/llvm.xcconfig"
LLVM_COMPONENTS_FILE="${PROJECT_DIR}/llvm-config/llvm-components.txt"

date_params=$((`stat -f "%m" $LLVM_COMPONENTS_FILE`))
date_config=$((`stat -f "%m" $LLVM_XCCONFIG_FILE`))
if [ $date_params -gt $date_config ]; then
    echo "llvm.xcconfig parameter changes detected"

    LLVM_COMPONENTS=`/bin/cat $LLVM_COMPONENTS_FILE`
    LLVM_CFLAGS=`/usr/local/bin/llvm-config --cflags`
    LLVM_LDFLAGS=`/usr/local/bin/llvm-config --ldflags`" "`/usr/local/bin/llvm-config --libs $LLVM_COMPONENTS`

    echo "// Configuration file for LLVM settings, generated as a build phase." > $LLVM_XCCONFIG_FILE
    echo "// $LLVM_COMPONENTS" >> $LLVM_XCCONFIG_FILE
    echo "LLVM_CFLAGS = $LLVM_CFLAGS" >> $LLVM_XCCONFIG_FILE
    echo "LLVM_LDFLAGS = $LLVM_LDFLAGS" >> $LLVM_XCCONFIG_FILE
fi

This script is based on the xcconfig and the parameters file being under the specified folder (./llvm-config/ under the project directory). The parameter file is basically a one line text file containing the parameters:

cbackend jit x86 linker ipo

Dave: Rivendell

2011-12-28T06:51:43+00:00

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Ordered this early in 2011.. Finally arrived today, it's an awesome model. I think it's the biggest WETA have produced so far.

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Paris: Hello

Paris Buttfield-Addison — 2011-11-30T11:39:01+00:00

Hello, Internet.

I’m back! I’m forcing myself to blog on a regular schedule. I’m also starting a PhD progress blog to document my final year-ish on my PhD work at UTAS.

Expect more tomorrow,

Paris

Dave: 50 Words For Snow

2011-11-30T02:59:53+00:00

New Kate Bush album (that's not a "director's cut", or remix)!

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Dave: XMas lights

2011-11-30T00:56:21+00:00

A bit early but some inexpensive USB LED lights make my desk seem very festive..

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Dave: Another Star Wars book - art of Star Wars Comics

2011-11-29T03:57:56+00:00

I ordered a few books weeks ago.. Now they're all arriving at once!

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Dave: Star Wars books

2011-11-28T23:47:36+00:00

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The How to speak Wookiee book is cute, it has 10 Wookiee phrases to coincide with sections in the book, eg number 6 is for Wookiee phrases to use when at a restaurant ("ahhh argh wha" is "are you going to eat that?")

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Dave: Hangzhou's West Lake (and no food)

2011-11-24T06:11:00+00:00

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Today I walked 1/2 way around West Lake in the last free day I have here. A common sight on the city side is to see and hear groups of people singing operatically, doing Tai Chi and then there are people doing calligraphy on the pavement with large brushes and just water.

It's obviously autumn, the leaves have turned, everyone's rugged up (except me, quite comfortable in just a tshirt). The lake has several man-made causeways and islands (from dredged silt) created in some places during the first millennium. The lake's famous (in China) for ten poetic scenic places such as one island called 3 ponds that mirror the moon, two others are Two Peaks Piercing the Clouds, and Orioles Singing in the Willows.

After walking to the far northern shore, I took a ferry boat (45RMB, ~$10) to the 3 ponds mirroring the moon island. This basically is an island in the lake which has lakes (ponds) inside it. After that, back to start. Ok, here's the food bit: on the island I bought some meat-on-a-stick ($1) from a vendor on the side of the path. It was ok, but I don't know what the meat was (maybe pork). It reminded me of "cut-me-own-throat Dibbler" from Terry Pratchett's discworld novels. :-P

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Dave: Final food

2011-11-23T04:49:00+00:00

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One of several student dining halls from the outside and then inside at the University I am teaching at. This is one floor (of 3) in one building (of many). I tend to eat here at night during teaching, simple, tasty meals (usually including some form of wok-fried spiced vegetables) with a very generous helping of rice costs about 5 yuan, about $1.

Snacks I have bought: I was hoping for mint Oreos, but realistically settled for green tea flavour (yep!). Corn chips (think unflavoured Cheetos) covered with a chocolate shell, surprisingly tasty. Kumquat and lime drink with a touch of honey, and a very cute looking mini cheesecake.

Finally, a sheep with lamb statue. Sadly, no squirrels.

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Dave: Chinese TARDIS

2011-11-21T05:10:00+00:00

I only just noticed this TARDIS (blending in on a Chinese freeway) from my hotel window. I hope it's not Sylvestor McCoy's Doctor :-]

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Dave: Tintin & Qiantang river

2011-11-20T08:23:00+00:00

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Today I decided to walk an entirely different way, so I headed away from west lake toward the (massive) Qiantang river (see map). This is a good 5k away from my hotel. Along the way there are several public spaces, rivers and viaducts, along with the remnants of an old wall. There's a huge amount of development, ginormous skyscrapers going up everywhere you look. There also seems to be a great multitude of apartment blocks. "Angry birds" has obviously made a mark here, apart from every second market item being devoted to them, I noticed quite a few junction boxes had angry bird murals on them.

Before the river I found a relatively large modern shopping mall ("MIXC"). It only had upmarket designer fashion shops eg Versace, and top end consumer electronics eg Bose. I thought things were reasonably cheap in China but not here - I could probably only afford some socks. Hmm.. better make that one sock. Actually, maybe one dirty sock... with holes... that's already been used as a rag on the Tag Heur shopfront window. I doubt most locals could shop here either but there must be enough rich locals (and I mean rich) to sustain the place. With > 4 million (?) people in the city there's probably enough of the rich to keep the place in business.

The saving grace of the mall (it even has an ice skating rink - see pic!), was that it contained a IMAX theatre and I was just in time for a showing of Tintin in 3D IMAX.
I loved every second of it. I loved reading the Tintin books from my local library as a child and .. ahem.. I collected them as an adult. The film won't disappoint. Without over hyping it too much.. it was brilliant. Look out for the hawk chase scene...

Continuing along the road I was following to get to the river.. it just ended. This also happened following another road on the way back. This one turned into a tunnel with no pedestrian access, so the only way forward was suddenly a muddy track leading into what seemed like a war zone. Think 6 lane highway disappearing. I was now in a major, major development area, row after row of new, and 1/2 complete empty apartment block buildings. Finally after much uncertainty, I reached a normal road again and finally got to the "civic" area. Think municipal offices on an extremely grand scale. One building looks like something out of the film Contact - (the accelerator machine), or a spaceship out of Stargate. The big gold ball building in the pictures is the Intercontinental hotel and convention centre. Another building is Hangzhou Grand Theatre.

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Dave: Lots of food

2011-11-19T11:23:00+00:00

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Had buffet dinner at the Hyatt on the one weekday night I have free. It cost 384RMB, which is about $75 - that's VERY, VERY expensive for here. One of the best meals (and filling) I've had. The quality of the food was very, very good. The only odd component was one dish I tried was cow's stomach. Tasted like beef. In contrast, lunch today was beef with rice (~$3), a hot chocolate with oatmeal (! - $1.50) and a cute puppy vanilla and raspberry cake ($2) from a franchise called "Free Mori".

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Dave: City God temple

2011-11-17T05:28:00+00:00

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Towering above Wusheng square, the city god temple is an inspiring site. On the way I saw an interesting window... To nowhere. I can see why they put a window to complete symmetry, but why then let you see the brick wall behind?

Inside the temple is an incredible model which uses faux 3D, carvings, models etc to show a town scape from the golden era, the southern song era. The antiquity of the (recently rebuilt) temple is marred a bit by the expo mascots out the front, a leftover from the world expo in Shanghai.

Finally, delicious "beef salad" and Miso soup at a "Japanese Cuisine" cafe.

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Dave: Day starts with a sunrise

2011-11-16T07:10:00+00:00

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I had to do some prep work this morning, but after that I went for a walk to an Indian restaurant ("Omar's Cafe") for lunch, after which I perambulated around part of West Lake. The tandoori chicken was very hot, more than I am used to. The restaurant has some very roman-esque columns next door.

Around a large portion of the lake are exquisite parklands, leafy nooks and water features. I can see why the entire district is famous and popular with tourists.

The golden buffalo was rumored to live at the bottom of the lake. When the lake ran dry, the buffalo would appear and spew out water to refill the lake.

Lastly, a squirrel. All holidays need a squirrel. (I wish I was on holiday!)

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Dave: University (ZUT) library

2011-11-15T09:03:31+00:00

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The massive central library. Like most buildings on campus, inside there is a generous amount of space eg very wide corridors and large foyers on every floor.

Every student has a bike to get about campus, they're ubiquitous and colorful. Finally the toilet in the international college - takes a bit of getting used to, and you have to bring your own toilet paper. The men's toilet floor on level 4 of my building needs a clean (it *is* the end of the day 💩)

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Dave: Hefang St and Drum tower

2011-11-15T05:49:41+00:00

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Time to kill before today's lectures so I strolled down southern song imperial thoroughfare on to Hefang rd. Very pretty but full of tourists.

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Dave: Costa coffee

2011-11-15T02:38:05+00:00

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That's one big coffee.. A gingerbread cookie latte, and a Christmas chocolate mousse.

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Dave: China food

2011-11-14T09:27:47+00:00

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I'm pretty confident this is grape juice (given that's written in the side!), followed by what I assume are prawn flavoured somethings, what I hope tastes cool in cucumber chips and finally raspberry and blueberry Oreos.

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Dave: Taxi ride of death

2011-11-14T06:53:00+00:00

(image courtesy of http://www.echinacities.com)

Anyone who has been to Hangzhou, or indeed elsewhere in China, would be familiar with the CRAZY death-defying merchants of translocation terror, the green taxi. The taxi drivers drive like madmen, and every time I get in one the first thing I do is desperatley hunt for the seat belt, the buckle for which, unfortunately, is buried most of the time under the seat, which is now the pit of despair. Clinging to the loosly flapping belt, wrapping it around your arm like a hard tourniquet gives some semblence of security, but I do actually have the utmost respect for their amazing driving skills, the way they're able to navigate with millimeters of precision around other vehicles coming from the other direction at 100km/h (and I suspect, laughing maniacally on the inside at the sheer look of terror on their victim, sorry, passenger). It's mandatory to use the horn, in fact, I think it's an insult to the other vehicles if you don't. [this last said only slightly tongue in cheek]. The last driver, knowing my Mandarin is limited to hello, thank you and receipt, insisted on asking me highly complex questions just to invoke my look of stupidity and pantomining I don't understand (which caused him no end of laughter). Still, I'm alive and relishing the 18 or so more taxi rides I have to take whilst here...

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Dave: Coffee with milk

2011-11-14T06:43:00+00:00

I had a slightly bizzarre episode with the hotel reception. I wanted to get some milk to have with instant coffee when in my room (there's a kettle, instant coffee, spoons etc, but no milk). Most other hotels I've ever stayed in usually either have a small carton of fresh milk or something like long-life (eg UHT) milk in one-serve-portions. The reception clerk looked at me strangly and then conferred with her colleague. "Have you had breakfast?" err.. yes, I just came from breakfast from across the lobby. "ah, so you have had breakfast?" ... yes, I had breakfast. I just want some milk to have in my room with coffee. Quizzical looks. Gestures that there's milk in the restaurant to have with cereal. A 5 minute phone call to someone and they tell me it costs 35 RMB for milk (~$7) and they'll bring it up. Feeling stupid and not wanting to refuse it now for the fuss I caused, I go back to my room. 20 minutes later, a porter knocks on the door and hands over a shopping bag with a litre of milk (UHT!) in it. They sent someone out to a nearby supermarket to buy the stupid crazy westerner some milk. oh dear.

(image from iamnuts-babehui.blogspot.com)

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Dave: China food

2011-11-13T06:04:02+00:00

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Slightly pointless but I'll keep posting pictures of slightly unusual food..

Pumpkin Danish, red been Danish, green tea bread, chocolate bubble tea with "pudding"

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Dave: Teaching trip in Hangzhou, China

2011-11-13T05:29:38+00:00

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View from hotel - the city is vast. "west lake" is far to the left of both photos.

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chrisjrn's site: Linux.conf.au 2012

Christopher Neugebauer — 2011-11-04T06:08:14+00:00

Miniconf: organised
Talk: accepted
Attendance: confirmed
Accommodation: booked
Ferry crossing: reserved

See you in January, Ballarat!

Chris: Google Reader obit.

Christopher Neugebauer — 2011-10-31T21:48:00+00:00

Google Reader’s just announced that they’re turning off reader sharing progressively from today. I wrote the following in my share stream a few moments ago, and realised that this was massively counterproductive — it will probably disappear in a few hours anyway.

So on the off chance that you subscribe to my feed and haven’t read this:

Hey all,

Reader sharing starts dying today. I’m pretty sad about that, I’ve loved reading the things all of you have shared over the past few years — I’ve discovered new things, built up new interests, learnt a lot and have had a lot of fun doing it. I’m going to miss reading what you have.

So what am I going to do? Well, I’ll be seeing if the ‘plus’ features actually replicate reader sharing in any useful form. Who knows, it might actually be a useful feature.

If not, we’ll see what manner of useful *external* sharing appears (share by e-mail looks particularly useful) — shared feeds don’t seem too hard to re-implement, and we could theoretically have something useful up and running over a weekend. I’m seriously considering doing this. Let me know if you’re interested!

So yeah, if you’re not already following me on twitter, that’s probably the most useful place to find me: I’m @chrisjrn. My blog is at http://chris.neugebauer.id.au. Keep in touch! I still want to read your stuff!

Thank you, and goodbye!

–Chris

Chris: RIP Dennis Ritchie

Christopher Neugebauer — 2011-10-13T10:22:23+00:00

Although I did not know the man, the contributions of Dennis Ritchie have have a profound effect upon my life and the community with which I associate. I interact with systems inspired by the first versions of UNIX, and write code in languages that owe their design principles to C, almost on an daily basis.

Dennis Ritchie was a giant on whose shoulders many of those in technology, including myself, can feel proud to stand on.

Dave: Star wars collection is now complete..

2011-10-11T04:14:07+00:00

p150.mov Watch on Posterous

What more can I say?

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Dave: Birthday acquisition

2011-09-28T01:48:27+00:00

My lovely wife bought this for my birthday a couple of days ago. I now have a first-world problem of where to put it..

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Dave: Akira

2011-09-12T08:10:53+00:00

Wanted these for such a long time, Amazon to the rescue (soooo much cheaper than locally)

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Hovo: River Fire 2011

Hovo — 2011-09-05T07:00:38+00:00

Here are a few pics of the Fireworks in Brisbane 2011..
I have always been a sucker for fireworks
These pictures were taken aboard the MiCat, the fireworks (the part that we saw) was taken of the Story Bridge.
Youtube clip here
[Show as slideshow]