MavEtJu's Distorted View of the World - Happiness
Things I've learned from the trip to the Greg Leheys Annual Hackers BBQ.Abode or Adobe?
Hypnocube is finished!
Equinix AusNOG2007 present
One device, three measurement units
The relevance of numbers
Not patient enough
Moving!
Paul Simon - Cecilia
New lightbulbs
postgresql didn't want to start...
My current location
How to beat the raffle at the St Marys Dutch Festival
Babies and silver disks
New year for a baby!
Grandstream ATA486 DHCP behaviour
To let
Baby On Keyboard Quotes
Single geeks vs married geeks
How to spot a dutchman on IRC
US$ 25 million for handing over Osama bin Laden
Can't help but love her...
Vague persons
Bouncing email
Dream about John Kerry
RFID Jedi tricks
Virus scanners
...the day after
We've moved!
We're moving!
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Things I've learned from the trip to the Greg Leheys Annual Hackers BBQ.
Posted on 2008-01-07 10:00:00
Tags: Traveling, Happiness
Last weekend Sam Lawrance, Juha Matti and I went to the yearly hackers barbeque from Greg Lehey. We learned the following things:
- At 06:00 in the morning with a plane leaving at 06:45, don't expect to get through the queue at the Virgin Blue checkin. Just wait politely in the queue until a lady shouts your destination and redirects you to the priority checkin.
- On a Virgin Blue plane, you can turn off the screens on the chair in front of you by pressing the minus button a lot of times. The sound of on the headset keeps going, so you still can listen to the radio.
- The trip from Tullamarine (Melbourne airport) to Avalon (Avalon airport) is smooth, except for the sixty odd speedhumps on the last 200 meters towards the pickup and dropoff point at Avalon Airport.
- Don't get lost in Ballarat... If you think that (insert a random town) is badly sign-posted, Ballarat is worse. On the eight kilometer trip to the information center we found four sign-posts with an "I" on it. And one indication said "<- B300 ->" but it didn't say which places it went too.
- Sign posts in Victoria don't have distances on it. They tell you which city/town/county/township you are going to, and which road number you are on, but it doesn't tell how far away you are. Except for Ballaret, they just give you the road number.
- Gregs house is on the right hand side of the road, while his mailbox is on the left hand side of the road.
- At Gregs place, don't count on GSM reception. On the other side of the swamp which is next to his place, less than a kilometer away, you have five out of five bars.
- Same with 3s G3 reception.
- The Vikings landed in the last 200 years in Victoria to leave some wooden construction in Gregs part of the swamp (don't ask me, look at the pictures)
- Beer can't be so bad that Matti doesn't drink it. At least three quarters of it.
- Don't worry about not being able to find the 12 Apostles stone formation, it's obvious where it is when you are there.
- The Great Ocean road is horrible... It's long and winding as hell. It's not a single bit like the road George Harrison sang about. Your average speed is far below 40 kilometers per hour. People at the back seats get sick. It's very winding. People with weak stomachs get sick. Very very winding. And it doesn't stop. It's called a B-grade road, but it's more winding that the C roads we have been on. Even if you decide you want to get out of the car and die here in peace, you can't get back to civilisation because you still have to do that long and winding road. Walking or cycling is the only solution, but there is nowhere to buy a bike. Get of that road as soon as possible, back to the A300. Don't worry about going from a B grade road via a C grade road to an A grade road, the C grade road will be much better than the B grade road. Man, what did I feel bad...
- You can't do Melbourne - Avalon - Ballarat - Dereel - Port something - Great ocean road - A300 - Avalon - Ballarat with a 55 liter tank. But it doesn't differ much!
- Airports need more different pinball machines and normal prices. Two dollars for three balls is too much. Having seven The Simpsons pinball machines and one Lord of the Rings one is not a good distribution.
- Airports need more power outlets so that people with laptops can use them. For example under the (horrible) chairs and at every wall. I'm not asking for internet access, just power. And if you want to have a good idea about what shop to open at an airport, start a "You can charge your mobile phone here" shop.
- When your flight is delayed, don't expect any free on-board entertainment (no I'm not asking for half naked stewardesses to dance, I mean the little TV screens). Come on Virgin Blue, I'm not asking for free drinks or something...
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Abode or Adobe?
Posted on 2007-12-16 17:00:00
Tags: Happiness
I bought a new fan today and it wasn't until I came home that I saw the brand and the logo. I compared it with the logo of Adobe and wonder how long they will be able to get away with it.
But then, since it's made in China I doubt that there is much Adobe can do about it.
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Hypnocube is finished!
Posted on 2007-12-02 09:00:00
Tags: Happiness, Electronics, Hypnocube
About a month ago I ordered a kit of the Hypnocube (Things that go blink in the night). Having not touched a soldering iron in say eight years, AU$ 200.- was quite a big amount of money to spend on it, but it was worth it. A nice piece of electronics is now sitting next to the TV.
The score so far:
- Four hours of soldering time.
- One and a half hours of non-soldering time.
- Forty centimeters of duct tape.
- Quite some amount of soldering tin.
- One carton box formerly filled with mango to make the jig out.
Quotes from family and friends:
- Naomi: Insiders is a show I normally watch with full attention, but today I spend my whole time watching that silly cube.
- Naomi: You should have waited for the 8x8x8 version.
- Dirk: Red. And Green. And Blue. And White!
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Equinix AusNOG2007 present
Posted on 2007-11-16 20:00:00
Tags: Happiness, Equinix, AusNOG
Today I visited the second day of the AusNOG2007 conference (I missed the first day because of an unfortunate illness which caused me to sleep for about 48 hours in three days) and received a present from Equinix: A notebook (a paper one, not a computerized one) with on the first page all the Essential Telephone Numbers they could think of. What was missing was the phone number of the Equinix NOC...
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One device, three measurement units
Posted on 2007-10-09 17:00:00
Tags: Happiness, Numbers
This device measures... 2RU by 19 inch by (grabs measure-tape) 40 centimeters.
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The relevance of numbers
Posted on 2007-10-07 17:00:00
Tags: Happiness, Numbers
The number 36: When talking about health it's a good number: 36 degrees Celcius is good. When talking about a pregnant woman it's a good number: 36 weeks is still a month to go!
And for both situations, everything above 40 is bad.
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Not patient enough
Posted on 2007-05-10 10:00:00
Tags: Happiness
We were flying back from Cairns to Sydney, the plane landed and people stood up and started to unpack their overhead luggage and move to the front of the plane. This was a little bit too early in the eyes of the captain, and he announced "Ladies and gentlemen... Can you please stay in your seats until the seatbelts sign has been turned off?". Yes, we were still taxiing towards the gate...
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Moving!
Posted on 2007-04-12 15:49:11
Tags: Happiness
Goodbye MovableType! Welcome handfull of scripts!
The website known as http://weblog.barnet.com.au/edwin/ is going to disappear. The new site for MavEtJu's Distorted View of the World is at http://www.mavetju.org/weblog/.
If you are using the RSS feed (RDF or XML), it can be continued at http://www.mavetju.org/weblog/index.rdf and http://www.mavetju.org/index.xml.
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Paul Simon - Cecilia
Posted on 2007-03-18 12:54:01, modified on 2007-03-18 21:33:26
Tags: Music, Happiness
Recently I bought the Anthology album from Paul Simon. It's two CDs, one with old songs and one from and later than the Graceland album. The old songs are good for singing along, and the one which catches my ear every time I hear it is Cecilia:
Cecilia, you're breaking my heart,
You're shaking my confidence daily.
Yeah yeah standard love song. Fast forward to the interesting part:
Making love in the afternoon with cecilia
Up in my bedroom,
I got up to wash my face
When I come back to bed,
Someone's taken my place.
So... Imagine this: Paul Simon takes Cecilia to his bedroom, has sex with her and then just goes to the bathroom to have a quick face wash. In this bedroom, a man jumps from his wardrobe and starts having sex with Cecilia. That man must have been there all the time that Paul and Cecillia were busy with each other, and must have been there even before they entered the room and started to get it on! And Cecilia? She doesn't care, she just goes for seconds in somebody elses bed and house, while she knows that the owner of that house is just one door away from her... That makes you think, doesn't it?
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New lightbulbs
Posted on 2007-03-04 13:41:34, modified on 2007-03-04 13:46:44
Tags: Happiness
This morning when cycling towards Kurnell (it was actually on the way back) I found a 20 dollar note. Of course I could have put this in my wallet and use it without thinking, but I decided to do something special with it: I bought some energy saving light bulbs with it. They are $ 8.65 each (for an equivalent of an traditional 80 Watts light bulbs one). Going through our place I saw I needed eight inside and two outside, so I went back and bought seven more. Less than hundred dollars spent, and feeling inside a lot better!
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postgresql didn't want to start...
Posted on 2006-08-16 11:21:20, modified on 2006-08-16 11:22:44
Tags: Happiness
After an unexpected reboot of our webserver, the postgresql database didn't want to restart. It complained that the process in its PID file, #441, already existed. When checking this with ps xauw, it showed up as the mysql database!
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My current location
Posted on 2006-05-31 10:34:36, modified on 2006-05-31 10:36:13
Tags: Happiness
In the living room in our appartment, according to my mobile phone, I'm in Kurnell.
In the study in our appartment, according to my mobile phone, I'm in Dolans Bay.
And when I'm standing in front of the apparment, according to my mobile phone, I'm in Cronulla.
This house is of all places!
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How to beat the raffle at the St Marys Dutch Festival
Posted on 2006-03-27 12:20:03, modified on 2006-03-27 12:24:52
Tags: Happiness
Yesterday I went to the Dutch Festival in St Marys. Finally access to market fresh stroopwafels and boerenkool met worst!
Anyway, there was a so called instant raffle. You pay one dollar, you pick one ticket from the bowl and if there is a number on it, you win! So I payed one dollar and oh dear, no number. A sad dutchman for the rest of the day... (at least I didn't win a large bird cage).
Twenty minutes later, Naomi asked "Mind if I do an experiment?". No idea what she was talking about, but I'm always in for her kind of experiments. Two minutes later she comes back with a smile from ear to ear and a t-shirt. "Here, I won this for you at the raffles!". She said "It's pretty silly if they put sticky tape around the winning tickets with numbers...". I don't care, I got a t-shirt!
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Babies and silver disks
Posted on 2006-01-09 16:30:01, modified on 2006-01-09 16:37:54
Tags: Happiness, Baby
Fun is: finding dual layer DVD disks in the shop.
Not fun is: find out that they cost AU$ 8.50 each.
Fun is: burning your first DVD disk on the computer.
Not fun is: when the test run actually writes something (http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=91536)
Fun is: seeing your baby playing with the expensive coaster.
Not fun is: your baby smacking the expensive coaster in your face.
Oh well, it's fun too :-)
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New year for a baby!
Posted on 2005-12-31 23:59:59, modified on 2006-01-09 16:44:47
Tags: Happiness, Baby
"Papa? How can the old year be finished when I'm not one year old yet?"
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Grandstream ATA486 DHCP behaviour
Posted on 2005-09-13 14:08:27, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:23
Tags: Happiness, Networking, Voice over IP, DHCP
64 bytes from 10.192.14.243: icmp_seq=25 ttl=127 time=0.532 ms 64 bytes from 10.192.14.243: icmp_seq=26 ttl=127 time=0.546 ms 64 bytes from 10.192.14.243: icmp_seq=27 ttl=127 time=0.564 ms 64 bytes from 10.192.14.243: icmp_seq=28 ttl=127 time=0.564 ms 64 bytes from 10.192.14.243: icmp_seq=29 ttl=127 time=0.570 ms 64 bytes from 0.0.0.0: icmp_seq=34 ttl=249 time=0.420 ms 64 bytes from 0.0.0.0: icmp_seq=35 ttl=249 time=1.807 ms 64 bytes from 0.0.0.0: icmp_seq=36 ttl=249 time=1.283 ms 64 bytes from 0.0.0.0: icmp_seq=37 ttl=249 time=1.036 ms 64 bytes from 0.0.0.0: icmp_seq=38 ttl=249 time=2.385 ms 64 bytes from 10.192.14.243: icmp_seq=39 ttl=249 time=0.764 ms 64 bytes from 10.192.14.243: icmp_seq=40 ttl=249 time=2.500 ms 64 bytes from 10.192.14.243: icmp_seq=41 ttl=249 time=0.507 ms 64 bytes from 10.192.14.243: icmp_seq=42 ttl=249 time=2.383 ms 64 bytes from 10.192.14.243: icmp_seq=43 ttl=249 time=0.612 ms 64 bytes from 10.192.14.243: icmp_seq=44 ttl=249 time=2.373 ms
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To let
Posted on 2005-08-26 09:42:01, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:23
Tags: Happiness
Heard on the radio (ABC Radio National, about 2005-08-26 09:40)
The verb "to let" can mean:
- To leave; to allow to pass.
- To hinder, prevent, obstruct, stand in the way of
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Baby On Keyboard Quotes
Posted on 2005-08-25 11:14:12, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:23
Tags: Happiness, Baby
Baby on mamas lap happily typing away on a MacOS/X keyboard
- Yes, you found the caps lock again.
- (Suddenly screen is filled up) Control V... how did you do that? Two keys at once!
- Hey look, he found spotlight. What is that?
- (Windows resize and minimize, desktop is shown) Let's not touch the F keys.
- (To me) What will you do with him if he actually types a real message?
Me: He typed kill. I don't like him anymore.
She: He typed 8qqquu. And made a hyperlink of it.
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Single geeks vs married geeks
Posted on 2005-08-13 16:42:57, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:23
Tags: Happiness, Baby
I finally understand why *nix and commandline is so popular by single geeks and not by married geeks with babies.... When you're holding a squiggly baby on your lap with one hand, it's much easier to navigate with a mouse than it is with a keyboard.
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How to spot a dutchman on IRC
Posted on 2005-07-22 11:05:13, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:23
Tags: Happiness
It's not easy being a non-native english speaker. Here is a list of common mistakes I make on IRC:
I've lent that book from...In the dutch language, "to lend" and "to borrow" use the same verb "lenen". It's the next word "to lend to", "to borrow from" which is specifying the who the actual object has: "lenen aan" and "lenen van".
I've learned her that she should...In the dutch language, "to teach" and "to learn" use the same verb: "leren". It's the next word which describes who got taught: "leren aan" and "leren van".
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US$ 25 million for handing over Osama bin Laden
Posted on 2005-07-21 13:10:53, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:23
Tags: Happiness
You can get US$ 25 million if you hand over Osama bin Laden.
Imagine if somebody else from Al-Quada did do that, what a cash-injection they would get!
So far for drying up the funding of terrorists...
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Can't help but love her...
Posted on 2005-06-03 23:39:02, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:23
Tags: Happiness, Dr Who
After watching the second episode of the new Dr Who series, the following discussion took place:
Me: So who do think destroyed the home planet of the Doctor?
She: Most likely the Sontarans.
Me: Why?
She: They're the warrior race.
She: Besides that, it's a piece of crap that he's the only one left,
because there is still Romana the Timelady, she's saving refugees
in espace.
She: Yes I'm a geek girl.
Me: And that's why I love you!
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Vague persons
Posted on 2005-01-31 11:29:51, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:22
Tags: Happiness
me: "Which one?"
she: "Euhm you know... The one which is too big to eat at once so you have to cut it up before."
me: "The watermelon?"
she: "Oh! That's another one which is too big to eat at once. But I meant the yellow one..."
me: "The pine apple?"
she: "Yes. The pine apple."
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Bouncing email
Posted on 2004-11-19 22:55:10, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:22
Tags: Happiness
<MavEtJu> what does it say when it bounces?
<Suzan> boing boing boing
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Dream about John Kerry
Posted on 2004-11-05 08:37:54, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:22
Tags: Happiness
Me: "Oh, how was he?"
My wife: "He wasn't really in the mood to talk to an Australian chick who felt sorry for him."
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RFID Jedi tricks
Posted on 2004-05-14 09:54:30, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:22
Tags: Happiness
What if everybody had an RFID payment card implemented in their right hand palm. Imagine sitting at outside at a pub, the waiter puts down your drinks and says "that's is 2 dollars". All you need to do is wave your hand in front of his machine and say with your best Jedi voice "These drinks have been paid for.". Waiter will check his machine and go "You are right, these drinks have been paid for!".
Now where is my lightsaber and my Jedi cloak?
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Virus scanners
Posted on 2004-02-05 14:04:12, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:20
Tags: Happiness
If a virus scanner has all virus definitions in its data files, wouldn't the virus scanner pick them up then?
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...the day after
Posted on 2004-02-01 19:07:01, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:21
Tags: Happiness
nonsense
makes
sense
b . u . t n . o . t t . o . d . a . y
...not today
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We've moved!
Posted on 2003-03-01 18:05:38, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:21
Tags: Happiness
We have moved. Well, we had to move is a better description. The appartment we were living in was owned by a couple living in Brisbane and they decided to sell it. And with tenants it is hard to sell, so we had to go.
The week before we moved out the people below us had to go, because the couple who owned the place had a fight, she kicked him out and he needed a place to live. Talk about bad luck for the whole appartment complex!
The good news is that we found a nice place in northern Cronulla, second floor. No pictures yet (this line will change once they're on there, so quickly take all your screenshots for a historical webpage). Thanks to everybody who helped us moving: Tash and Nick, Blueice, Muz, Sandra and Paul, Genny and her sons.
In case you're wondering when we will get kicked out of this one: This flat is fully owned by a corporation, so the chances of staying here for a longer time have increased a little bit.
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We're moving!
Posted on 2002-09-07 03:30:12, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:21
Tags: Happiness
After being in Australia for more than a year we're moving into our own place: An appartment in Cronulla, opposite of Shelly Park. As usual, the X marks the spot. 250 meters from the sea and we can see the waves! My Cronulla page has more maps and pictures of the house.
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