10th April 2005
nie, vielleicht, ja, doch!
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So I perhaps spent a bit too much money on stuff I don't really need today. However, given the spate of recent depression, I claim that I deserve it. I went to JBs and bought a copy of Kraftwerk's Electric Café, after my father found the 33 yesterday and was playing it before I took him to the airport. In a spate of purchase of German techno/electronica/et al. Stephanie also bought me the Run Lola Run sound track the other day.
I also purchased a cable for my iPod at AUD$35 (did I ever mention Apple Computers is an anagram for the word extortion?). Since Linux decided to write block level shit to my filesystem via Firewire and the iPod won't charge over USB2, this going flat and eating my filesystem, I have solved the problem with a Cable of Union. It's now plugged into a Firewire plugpack and the USB2 on my computer. The new dosfstools in Ubuntu could fsck my broken filesystem back into life (automatically too), and now the iPod seems to be running nicely again.
I have been to the airport 3 times this weekend, and still haven't managed to get out of here. I dropped my youngest brother off at the International Airport, where security was tight, and all the students going on tour were searched for explosives. I dropped my father off at the Virgin (domestic) terminal, but it was late, so I didn't go in. Finally, I picked up my other brother from the Qantas (also domestic) terminal. Security screening here was taking so long the queue was nearly out the door, I was asked to remove my belt and my watch, besides all the usual things. Seems like an unprecedented level of paranoia and it makes me wonder who knows what. Alex seemed relatively happy with all of this, I think he wants to live in a paranoid, police-state.
Did breakfast, wank factor: high. My brother was in attendance, as I'd just had to pick him up. Picking him up, and arriving on time would have gone like clockwork, had his flight not been 20 minutes late. Speaking of clockwork, it's amazing how well oiled the Qantas ground teams are when they were meant to have a plane in the air again in 10 minutes. They had the cargo doors open, and cargo coming out before they had even finished connecting the air bridge. There were people getting off the plane by the time I walked from watching the plane dock to stand by the gate doors. Why can't they do it that fast every day?
Hoary was released. There were drinks to celebrate. I actually concede it really is quite good and that anyone who got my Friday-avo rant should ignore it. I do hope the controversial Nautilus patch gets reverted, but I hear that it has something to do with Stephanie being in Melbourne (if you don't get this, you had to have been there. For the record, Stephanie is not in Melbourne).
We have a TV on the floor in the living room. It's not a new TV, it instead currently belongs to my parents, but my father was speaking of purchasing a new TV soon. They have no need for 3 TVs, plus this one is still a nice television. I didn't buy a DVD player today, because I saw nothing I liked for the price point. Plus, I might be able to do something interesting with generic PC hardware. Perhaps a small computer, or a laptop with a dead LCD. Stephanie saw a Mac Mini in Digilife, she thinks we should use that (incidentally, if you buy your Mac today, you will not get a free Tiger upgrade, so I'm still holding off). A PC would also allow me to wire it into the stereo hardware, assuming I either fix it or replace it.
I think that's enough for now. Canberra next week, should prepare for it at some point. Also, I seem to recall I have a test tomorrow... hmm.
I also purchased a cable for my iPod at AUD$35 (did I ever mention Apple Computers is an anagram for the word extortion?). Since Linux decided to write block level shit to my filesystem via Firewire and the iPod won't charge over USB2, this going flat and eating my filesystem, I have solved the problem with a Cable of Union. It's now plugged into a Firewire plugpack and the USB2 on my computer. The new dosfstools in Ubuntu could fsck my broken filesystem back into life (automatically too), and now the iPod seems to be running nicely again.
I have been to the airport 3 times this weekend, and still haven't managed to get out of here. I dropped my youngest brother off at the International Airport, where security was tight, and all the students going on tour were searched for explosives. I dropped my father off at the Virgin (domestic) terminal, but it was late, so I didn't go in. Finally, I picked up my other brother from the Qantas (also domestic) terminal. Security screening here was taking so long the queue was nearly out the door, I was asked to remove my belt and my watch, besides all the usual things. Seems like an unprecedented level of paranoia and it makes me wonder who knows what. Alex seemed relatively happy with all of this, I think he wants to live in a paranoid, police-state.
Did breakfast, wank factor: high. My brother was in attendance, as I'd just had to pick him up. Picking him up, and arriving on time would have gone like clockwork, had his flight not been 20 minutes late. Speaking of clockwork, it's amazing how well oiled the Qantas ground teams are when they were meant to have a plane in the air again in 10 minutes. They had the cargo doors open, and cargo coming out before they had even finished connecting the air bridge. There were people getting off the plane by the time I walked from watching the plane dock to stand by the gate doors. Why can't they do it that fast every day?
Hoary was released. There were drinks to celebrate. I actually concede it really is quite good and that anyone who got my Friday-avo rant should ignore it. I do hope the controversial Nautilus patch gets reverted, but I hear that it has something to do with Stephanie being in Melbourne (if you don't get this, you had to have been there. For the record, Stephanie is not in Melbourne).
We have a TV on the floor in the living room. It's not a new TV, it instead currently belongs to my parents, but my father was speaking of purchasing a new TV soon. They have no need for 3 TVs, plus this one is still a nice television. I didn't buy a DVD player today, because I saw nothing I liked for the price point. Plus, I might be able to do something interesting with generic PC hardware. Perhaps a small computer, or a laptop with a dead LCD. Stephanie saw a Mac Mini in Digilife, she thinks we should use that (incidentally, if you buy your Mac today, you will not get a free Tiger upgrade, so I'm still holding off). A PC would also allow me to wire it into the stereo hardware, assuming I either fix it or replace it.
I think that's enough for now. Canberra next week, should prepare for it at some point. Also, I seem to recall I have a test tomorrow... hmm.
mood: 
exhausted
exhaustedmusic: Lee Spencer & Johnny Kilmek - Running One (Large mix)
In case you haven't seen it
A review of Ubuntu from a Canonical Interface Designer
He has some interesting points to make. Some of them I do agree with, some strongly, some of them I don't agree with, some of them are trivial user interface bugs that no one has noticed (I'm hoping to see a spate of patches), some of them are really hard to solve. I particularly want to draw point to #37. There are also a lot of times when I can't replicate the bug he is talking about, so I wish we had examples of the buggy applications rather then generalities.
This is the sort of bad-arse interface testing we need. Just as long as the community gets to make sure that design features don't get overwritten by vendor patches. Maybe we can look towards an even tighter, more consistent look and feel in 6 months time.
He has some interesting points to make. Some of them I do agree with, some strongly, some of them I don't agree with, some of them are trivial user interface bugs that no one has noticed (I'm hoping to see a spate of patches), some of them are really hard to solve. I particularly want to draw point to #37. There are also a lot of times when I can't replicate the bug he is talking about, so I wish we had examples of the buggy applications rather then generalities.
This is the sort of bad-arse interface testing we need. Just as long as the community gets to make sure that design features don't get overwritten by vendor patches. Maybe we can look towards an even tighter, more consistent look and feel in 6 months time.
