Inside my mind

Last week I volunteered to give a Pizza Thursday talk at Catalyst. This involves telling a bunch of educated software developers something they don't know yet. I picked accessibility.

Of course, projects is the only site I have that's what I'd consider worth using as a nice example. This guilt at having all my other sites in various levels of inaccessibility has pushed me to make some tweaks to this blag.

The changes are not complete! I'm just hungry. Tweaks so far:

• Increased fint sizes for the main content
• Increased contrast colours for the main content
• Small layout changes
• Layout fixes that were removed when I upgraded serendipity have been restored
• Heading hyperlinks are now underlined

If you want to see the difference, compare this content to the menu on the side.

• Something we strive for
• Something we will never attain
• Something others don't expect, despite us thinking they do
• Something that drives us to hide our imperfections

We're human. Let's leave being God-like to God and live life with the understanding that we aren't, won't and don't have to be perfect.

I'm really 37, not 22!

I think we've been using SVN for a while now. Git seems to be on the horizon.

Transmitting file data .
Committed revision 20000.

Well, one of the two. I thought I should give a brief update on what I've been up to recently.

Sunday was my 22nd birthday. I played pool with friends then had a family dinner. It was really enjoyable and a nice, relaxed way to see in another year.

My DJing aspirations are humbly beginning. I have a Numark DM3001X Mixer and a Pioneer CDJ800 (MK1). I am arranging with a rather useless seller on TradeMe for a CDJ100, which will round off my collection and allow me to get some proper mixing going. So far I survive with my iPod and single CDJ.

On the relationship front I'm happily single at present and I don't see that changing in the near future. It leaves me time to do stuff I enjoy and hang out with friends though so it's not a bad thing.

Work is going well. I'm due to finish at State Services soon which will be a shame but I know Catalyst want me full time already, so they'll be happy.

So I ended up getting a VPS in the UK. I was hesitant, my main concerns were lag times and reliability, however so far I've been impressed:

hera.crimson.net.nz                     
----------------------------------------------------------------------
date          uptime       dns   connect   request      ttfb      ttlb

2008-05-12    100.00     0.002     0.102     0.102     0.102     0.235
2008-05-11    100.00     0.000     0.099     0.099     0.099     0.198
2008-05-10    100.00     0.013     0.171     0.171     0.173     0.270
2008-05-09    100.00     0.009     0.155     0.155     0.158     0.254
2008-05-08    100.00     0.025     0.138     0.139     0.140     0.237
2008-05-07    100.00     0.004     0.134     0.134     0.134     0.232
2008-05-06    100.00     0.003     0.133     0.133     0.133     0.232

----------------------------------------------------------------------
minimum       100.00     0.000     0.099     0.099     0.099     0.198
maximum       100.00     0.025     0.171     0.171     0.173     0.270
average       100.00     0.008     0.133     0.133     0.134     0.237
----------------------------------------------------------------------

So my plan is to move almost all of my hosting onto the VPS and eventually retire the stuff that can't move. If you're wondering where I got the stats from, basicstate have a free service that monitors the uptime of your web sites, and I got the VPS from cheapVPS using their 1 year deal on the Special Offers page.

Mini Happy Dev House highlights:

• Andy Smells
• Nigel is a twat
• Windows blue screens on me
• OLPC is cool, the negative publicity isn't
• Survey.Net is in need of an overhaul. Good thing I've done a few of these at work recently
• Sim City on OLPC
• RSI is a bitch

• Projects
• Information Safe

15:34 <@Neil> yes.. buy the whole building and run an extension lead across the strete?
…
15:35 <@Neil> we could just knock down the apartment building and build a huge solar arary
15:35 <@Neil> catalyst = carbon neutral... maybe carbon negative
15:35 * richard likes the idea of a computer room in the bottom of an apartment building
15:35 <@puck> Neil: I don't think the space will be big enough...
15:35 <@vik> You're in Wellington - use windmill!
15:35 <@richard> use the waste heat to heat the water
15:35 <@richard> with a big heat pump
15:36 <@Neil> if the apartment building has free hot water (some do) use the hot water to run a hydro station
15:36 <@puck> Neil: cunning plan
15:36 <@richard> this would provide the free hot water for the building
15:36 <@puck> Combine Neil's and richard's ideas for a perpetual motion device?
15:36 <@vik> CHP Fuel Cell in the car park anyone?
15:37 <@Neil> nah. if we own the building..
15:37 <@Neil> mmmm perpetual heating
15:37 <@richard> use the roof water to run a hydro station - not much mass, but significant height
15:38 <@gordon> heated roof water... an outdoor swimming pool?
15:39 <@richard> put it in a glasshouse on the roof
15:39 <@richard> plants to absorb the CO2 from the aircon
15:40 <@richard> ... and generate biofuel for the backup generator
15:41 <@ian> people could have bikes to power their own workstations

I was just about to try installing Ubuntu Gutsy on my laptop. I just realised this was a stupid idea at this time.

Goodnight

First, let me start by saying I've not made a resolution, and I don't intend to. I either don't care about them, ignore them or forget about them despite my best efforts so this year I'm not making one.

I went up to Waitarere with Aleisha and some of her friends for new years. Despite some incidents such as myself, Aleisha and my car getting poorly I enjoyed the trip. It was a nice break and a chance to spend some time with new people. (Those of you that know me just smiled a bit inside).

I'm not good with meeting new people, so I started out by keeping to myself, but eventually I got to know some of the other people there quite well, and can I really ask for more than to see in the new year with my girl in my arms staring up at the skies and seeing a shooting star? (she saw two, I missed the 2nd one).

Yes I did make a wish, no I'm not going to tell you what it was

On a more boring front I plan to start working on the 14th January, once SSC and Catalyst send me contracts to sign, then I can start earning again.

As some of you know I've been back from China for almost 6 days. I apologise for the lack of updates whilst I was over there, you can blame Aleisha for that, I seemed to spend most of my free net time talking to her in one way or another.

In the end I came back early, I returned on the 5th, not the 16th as planned. On the outside this looks like I came back because I wasn't enjoying myself, but this isn't the case. I really did enjoy the trip, it was a great experience and I don't regret it. The reason I came back is that I didn't see a huge amount left to do. I saw Changshu, Shanghai and Beijing, I climbed the Great Wall, saw Tieneman Square and experienced different types of culture in China, saw a completely different way of living and took photos of it all for good measure.

However, there were aspects that I found harder than I thought I would. The main one was the food. I've always been a picky eater, and I knew this would be a challenge, but even though I adjusted to the food and I didn't go hungry I didn't take much pleasure in meal times. I found crabs to be particularly challenging, there's something about dismantling a crab, I don't want to do it again.

The second issue was the language/culture barrier. Again, I knew this going over, but even so I found it hard to deal with people shouting Chinese at dinner and leaving me to eat, or talking about me in Chinese, which was even less fun. I also had a 'look, a white boy' effect on a lot of people, which gave me a tiny taste of what it's like to be in the minority group for the first time in my life.

Despite all this though I feel incredibly lucky to have had Rose and Lingzi there to help me out. I also owe Roses parents a lot of thanks. All of them helped me, figuring out which food I liked and making sure that something nice was ordered that I would enjoy, translating the essential stuff and just the little things like making sure I was warm enough and that my wallet wasn't in my back pocket for easy theft.

After the Beijing Trip I wasn't sure how much more I would get out of the trip. I'll admit I was missing New Zealand and I felt that whilst Changshu is interesting I wouldn't gain much more from another 11 days when I'd rather be at home, so I changed my flights and came home early.

If anyone is interested in going to China I can recommend it for a bit, just to immerse yourself in the culture, but the more I stayed there the more I truly appreciated the stuff we take forgranted in New Zealand like clean water from the tap, clear skies, fish and chips, sandy beaches, blue lakes and the ability to just walk down a street and not be stared at.

I got my new camera today! Sadly I discovered the mode wheel doesn't select "Movie Mode" properly, so we are going to take it back under warranty, but before that I've got some really nice shots with it!

View all the photos from China

Once again, safe, settled and well. Trying to setup free calling to NZ.