dleigh.plan

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000


I hate living by myself. I hate it sooo much.

4 months ago I loved it. :(

That is all.

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +1000


   http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/03/marry-him/6651/

   "Marry Him!: The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough"
   Also the title of an excellent book by the same author on the
   same topic.

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +1000


Got up 30 hours ago, my head feels like someone left a battleaxe in
it. 245 messages in my home inbox, 167 at RMIT. No brain power to
reply to any of them until tomorrow.

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +1000


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNBQDPRbqv8

I'd like to blow this man's horn. Wish I had a superbone like he does.
On the other hand, I haven't touched my own bone in years, and I
really don't want to re-learn the fingering with my left hand.

(I think "Trombonists do it in 7 positions" is the only double
entendre I couldn't fit in there).

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +1000


   "Paralysis of the will is created by the belief that one
    lacks the ability to cope or control an event's outcome.
    Consequently, there is a reluctance to commit oneself to a
    goal. Suicidal wishes often reflect a desire to escape from
    unbearable problems."
                              -- Beck & Weishaar, 1995, p.239

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +1000


I don't much care for poo jokes, but they occasionally produce
excellent reddit pun threads:

      rsmalley2009
      That joke was shitty: it always seems like students are the butt of
      every joke.

      andrewinmelbourne
      No need to be so anal.

      scoofy
      i finally got it in the end

      Extremeans
      This is a professor I could get behind.

      Gravity13
      This pun thread is assinine.

      pennyroyal
      I thought they were pretty good 'til you came and rectum.

      Charlie24601
      This thread gets my brown star of approval.

      andrewinmelbourne
      If you like it you should have put a ring on it.

      StreeTelevision
      What crappy puns...

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:00:00 +1000


Ports upgrade I've been working on (off and on) for two weeks is
finally finished.

GNOME cruft removed: about 100 ports
Port makefiles requiring manual editing: 3
PRs filed: 0 (I just whined on the mailing list a bit)

PS (offtopic): The timing of the sax is *perfect* here:
http://bennyhillifier.com/?id=tWk4MCQaHrc

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:00:00 +1000


Walked through the meat and seafood section of the Vic market
today (normally I avoid it because of the fishy smell). I rarely
go to the market for veg as I find that the prices are equal or
only a little better than Aldi or the Carlton markets.

Amused at all the butchers advertising "free range beef". That
said, many of them are also organic and/or hormone free, and
cheaper than anywhere I've seen in the city or Carlton. If only
they were open before I go home (when I normally buy meat).

Also: goanna .inbox down to 149 from over 200.

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +1000


Tried a teaspoon of mustard in a cup of warm water and it tasted
disgusting but didn't work. I had to get a chocolate bar to get
rid of the taste. I fail at bulimia. Maybe it just doesn't work
with wholegrain mustard.

Thu, 20 May 2010 00:00:00 +1000


--->  Packages processed: 24 done, 4 ignored, 131 skipped and 2 failed

Fucking libX11.

Fri, 07 May 2010 00:00:00 +1000


http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/05/06/2058245

 ``It amazes me that the financial industry continually gets a free
   pass on matters that would result in public outrage towards any
   other industry that deals with people's livelihoods.

   This explanation, whether true or not, is equivalent to saying
   that an airplane crashed because of a single faulty sensor.

   Or a bridge fell due to one rusted bolt.

   But, here, one fat finger led to the temporary destruction of
   nearly 1 trillion dollars of value! Would we tolerate such bogus
   explanations from aerospace engineers or architects? Why can we
   not demand the same from our financial "engineers"?            ''

-- atomic777

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +1000


http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1633574&cid=32008140

   Just look at the way he boldly announces products' limitations
   and disabilities as strokes of design genius (and then later,
   even more astoundingly, announces re-enabling basic
   functionality as 'groundbreaking new features' - witness the
   iPhone's recent addition of multi-tasking, and the "you can't
   fit a netbook in your pocket" campaign with the release of the
   iPhone and iPod Touch, then the backflip to "bigger is better"
   with the release of the iPad).

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +1000


http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1628294&cid=31947104

 ``When "resisting arrest" is the only charge, it's absurd. They
   can't arrest you for resisting arrest because they didn't arrest
   you before you resisted, and if they didn't charge you with
   anything else, then they weren't arresting you at all when you
   resisted. Yet it's getting more common for any belligerent
   person to get arrested (and convicted) of resisting arrest when
   no arrest was being made.''

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1100


   With thanks to fruitstripzebra:

A duck walks into a pharmacy and asks the pharmacist, "do you
have any strawberry chapstick?" "No, but maybe tomorrow," says
the pharmacist. So, the duck leaves and returns to the pharmacy
the next day. "Do you have any strawberry chapstick," asks the
Duck. "No, but I have some grape chapstick." "No," says the
Duck. "I really prefer strawberry."

Every day for the next week the Duck returns to the pharmacy to
find that they have every other flavor of chapstick besides
strawberry. Finally, on the eighth day, he returns to the
pharmacy. "Do you have any strawberry chapstick," asks the Duck.
"Why, yes," replies the pharmacist. "That'll be $2.50." "But,
I'm a duck! I don't have any money," says the Duck. "Then I
can't give you the chapstick," says the pharmacist. "But I've
been coming in here every day for over a week," exclaims the
Duck. "But you don't have any money! What did you expect?" "I
don't know," says the Duck, sadly. "I just thought you would put
it on my bill."

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1100


   The use of Tasers in the US makes perfect sense if you look at their
   general attitude towards guns, and gun control: as a necessity that
   overpowers common sense, and the pretense that they will never be abused.

   Weapons will be abused. They say 'guns kill people', but take those
   guns away and it becomes a lot harder to kill people with a closed fist.

   It's also a lot harder to abuse a Taser when you have to use force to
   subdue someone, and I rather get my arm twisted behind my back than
   getting tased.

-- Marco Antonio

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1100


Early, but this is my insightful post of the year (by 'Causality'):

   ... people are often rather eager to excuse and defend
   incompetent users out of some misguided sympathy for them. Real
   compassion for them would mean teaching, explaining, and
   providing good references for their edification. It would not
   mean excusing their failures or sugarcoating their incompetence.

   Any literate adult can achieve competency with a computer, and
   most problems that make the network a worse place for everyone
   directly involve users who lack knowledge, so why the "get off
   your high horse" spite towards those who expect better?

   If anything, I think the "high horse" is the belief that
   users will always be ignorant, will always be victims of these
   security issues, and can never overcome them. It is not the
   belief that they can and should overcome them.

      http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1575094&cid=31402934

Hognoxious's followup provides an important clarification:

   Not knowing isn't stupid. It's ignorant, and that can be cured. Refusing
   to know, even when you've been (repeatedly) told - now that's stupid.

Another from Baxxter:

   A driver should be aware of their fuel economy, but it's more
   likely the job of a specialist to determine why the fuel economy
   has changed. Knowing if the difference is due to the air
   filter/oil filter/radiator/spark plug/exhaust/fuel filter, or
   any of the other parts which could cause this problem is
   generally left to someone knowledgeable. The end-user should
   only be expected to notice the issue and request help...

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1100


Classes started today, updates which broke the level 9 labs
installed yesterday. :( In better news, I'm beginning to enjoy
the head tutor role (rather than just dreading the workload).

Website updates (most of these are not recent, I've just
forgotten to mention them in the .plan until now):

   - Fixed dumps.pl and other scripts in the codepile, which the
     server kept trying to execute instead of display (even when I had
     explicitly set them to text/plain in .htaccess). :(
      - Thanks to Axel G. Rossberg for spotting the problem and mailing me.

   - Fixed image gallery going AWOL due to php-gd segfaulting.

   - New notes page: FreeBSD Notes (mostly stuff from this .plan)
     http://dylanleigh.net/notes/freebsd.html

   - New footer goes up to 2010. :) Only took 2 months.

   - Coming soon: Cooking and Nutritional notes...

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +1100


No updates in the last 2 months because I saw no reason to
post about the pains that still make it hard to type, or how
miserable, tired and lonely I feel. Today I will mention
something which really aggravates that last problem - people
at work who walk past me and look the other way.

I "know" nearly all the staff at RMITCS by face and name,
and they "know" me in that sense. But few have any interest
in actually getting to know me, or even talking to me. Many
don't even look at me or greet me or respond in any way to
my greeting.

Fairly confident that none of them are going to read this.

Five years ago when I first started working here, I was a
little uncomfortable, often treated like a feckless child by
some of the TSG members. Despite that I still felt like
"part of the team". Now I feel simply unwelcome here.

At least the _students_ seem to appreciate my efforts (the
undergrads, anyway). Whenever I feel unwanted I try to focus
on the dozen-odd happy students who came up to me after they
had gotten their marks for Comp Org or Operating Systems,
who told me that they were sure they would have failed
without my tutorials.

Even this depresses me, when I realise there is nowhere for
me to go here. Being a good DP or tutor is a path to
nothing. Although lecturers are teachers first and foremost,
getting the job depends on your research, not teaching
abilities or experience. Now that TSG is no longer part of
CS, my 5 years of experience as a DP aren't worth anything
to anyone.

I could try to get a job elsewhere, and may even be
successful. I'm not sure that would be a good idea, all
things considered. Apart from the extra time (which I
haven't had much of, since 2007) and the extra travel (see:
time), I doubt I will find it easier to make friends at a
business than a university (not that the university seems to
be working).

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +1100


Waiting at the dentist for nearly 2 hours today. I worked on a
lab report, while nearly everyone else waiting did nothing. A
volunteer was surveying everyone in the waiting room, asking
what volunteers could do to help, if waiting would be more
tolerable with more magazines or TV screens.

Am I the only person who brings something to do (or read) when I
know I'll be waiting for a while?

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +1100


Miserable enough at 1am this morning to walk up to Curtain Square and
talk to the possums again. Two of them came up to me, nearly a meter
away, and didn't hiss (they do when being territorial). I wonder if
they're getting used to me, or I just happened to find a friendly pair.

Walking back past all the Rathdowne street shops reminded me how much
I missed eating what I feel like. It's not that I don't enjoy the
stuff I do have - I make a lot of delicious nouvelle cuisine - but I
miss the freedom of simply eating what I want to. Ratatouille is
tasty, but less so when you feel like corn chips and chocolate.

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +1100


This kid should have been grounded.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/\
16yo-tradie-dies-after-electrocution-20091119-imym.html

*rimshot*

(sorry)

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +1000


86 in the .inbox, a low point for months.

Found an interesting WP category today:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Engineers_who_committed_suicide

UPDATE: also:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Programmers_who_committed_suicide

For more:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Suicides_by_occupation

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1000


Leaving the office at 23:07 with 88 left in the .inbox.
Today must be ABC Annual Alliteration Day:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/26/2667209.htm
 ^ Garrett gives Gorgon gas go-ahead

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/26/2667711.htm
 ^ Rejected Romeo rammed rival's rod

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1000


So... nearly a year without updating.

In some ways, a lot has happened in those 12 months. I gradually
regained the use of my hands, although I still can't use a mouse
and I have to take regular typing breaks, at least I can type
and code again. I'm back teaching online and on-campus.

I was threatened by the people I was forced to live with, and
had to stay away from my own "home" for my own safety, camping
at RMIT often and going back when nobody else was there. I
worked my arse off for a semester, failing half my subjects so I
could afford to buy my own place.

In other ways, not much has happened. I can't remember the last
time I had a chance to play a game, let alone work on anything
interesting in my own time. My typing problems certainly haven't
helped there. I feel like I haven't learnt or done anything new
for years - the little study I've been doing has mostly involved
stuff I already knew.

I'm seriously considering abandoning the .plan in favour of
something I would find easier to update - although the term
"podcasting" makes me want to puke into my microphone. In the
meantime, I have an assortment of miscellaneous links, quotes
and other stuff I never got around to posting.

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +1000


About 2 or 3 weeks ago I developed some problem with my joints,
especially my arms. My wrists have been hit the worst, which made
it impossible to type at the time.  Splints/Braces and Ice packs
on my wrists and arms tend to be the only thing that helps.

It's improved somewhat in the last week - to the point where I can
type for short periods - but I still can't hold a mouse without
severe pain in my hands and shooting up my arms.

This is going to mean a few changes:
   - Probably less updates here.
   - I'll be on IRC less then ever, probably not at all.
   - Email response times may be several days or worse.
   - I won't be taking any shifts at the DP office until we
     get some new input devices sorted out. Even then, I
     probably won't be taking solo shifts.

As well as the medical aspects I've spent a lot of time looking
into alternative input devices, including speech recognition
- which apart from Dragon's expensive Windows-only software is
generally useless.

The only split keyboard in local shops is the MS 4000 one, which
costs around $60-$80 and doesn't have enough vertical angle to be
fully comfortable for me. Getting a better one imported from
overseas will cost around three times that plus shipping (although
well worth it if it helps).

Pointing devices are worse. So far I've been mostly limited to my
laptop's touchpad, which is uncomfortable but usable. I haven't
been able to find external touchpads anywhere locally, and the
only trackball is the fairly awkward Logitech Marble Mouse, around
$50 or more.

I've been looking for vertical or pistol grip mice without
success. I did find a weird ring-mouse thing at the Camberwell
swap meet, which is more comfortable held in a clenched hand than
worn on a finger.

neef has been providing me with advice on ergonoimic input devices,
and kindly lent me a good Kensington trackball today. I've been
using it for a few hours now - the longest I've been able to work
for since this started.

If anyone knows where I can pick up any vertical mice, trackballs,
touchpads, good ergonomic keyboards or miscellaneous input devices
_in or around Melbourne_, please mail me. Later this week I'm
going to dig out my old gamepads and joystick and give them a try.


PS: This was revision 666 of my dotfiles svn repository. Coincidence?