Category Archives: Other

It’s done!

Posted on by
Reply

After writing that last post I continued to get the stream of spam comments arriving so I made my decision and started the process to migrate back to WordPress.

And here I am!

If you’re reading this, you’re looking at my WordPress site. I’ve simplified the look somewhat – in the interests of getting up and running quickly – but I may tweak and add and remove bits over the next week or two, so please don’t be alarmed if stuff moves.

I’m already enjoying the auto-saving post editor (including the fact it doesn’t have rendering issues!) and the simplicity of the back end compared to the endless pop-up, pop-over and pop-off “web too-point-oh!” shenanigans of SquareSpace.

And I’ve already canned my SquareSpace account which, I’m sure, is the main reason DNS propagation takes time – to allow such things. :-)

Two wheeled fun

Posted on by
Reply

Continuing the series of musical posts and jumping forward to the present. Some of my most recently discovered music comes from the biking DVDs my sons have. One is into downhill mountain bkiing and the other freestyle BMX.

These two songs have been heard many, many times in our house and I can honestly say I enjoy them every time.

From the downhill discipline comes Walking on a Dream from Empire of the Sun.

And from the freestyling BMXers comes the wickedly catchy Geraldine from Glasvegas.

Tricks of the trade

Posted on by
Reply

Thursday

How about Monday?

Yes, that would be great.

What time can we start?

We’re usually up and around by 8am.

Great. We’ll see you then.

Monday, 8:10am

Hi. We’re running a bit late as we are short staffed. He should be on his way to you shortly.

OK. Thanks.

Monday, 9:05am

Hi. Sorry we’re late. Must be Monday-itis as quite a few people didn’t show up to work today. Where are these lights going?

…

Monday, 12:50pm

We have to go off to another job to take up the slack from those not working. We’ll be back tomorrow around 8:30.

OK.

Tuesday, 11:47am

Hi. We’re here to work on some lights.

…

One person showed up at first on the Monday. He was later joined by another who, I believe, was only coming to assess the job – a supervisor perhaps. The second person stayed for some time before leaving and assisted with some wiring work that really required two people.

I was left with the impression that the first guy would return on Tuesday, with a junior to assist. In fact, a completely different person showed up with a junior. At least he was somewhat briefed on what had been done and was yet to be done.

It is now 12:32pm on Tuesday and the guys are hard at work. I am not sure they will finish today, but if they keep up at this pace I think they have a fair chance.

This is not the first time such shenanigans have occurred in this house. A heat pump installation earlier this year attracted the same sort of behaviour.

When tradesmen are here, I work from home so we can be sure someone is home at all times. I usually prefer not to work from home and yet I have already spent two half days here pointlessly.

As my wife put it, “one thing at a time?” Oh well, I guess they have plenty of work and there’s not much we can do about it.

Aaaaaaand, we’re back!

Posted on by
1

New lookAfter much searching for a theme, much understanding of how it worked, and a LOT of futzing with it, here is the new look.

You can see in the montage image how the look has changed from the last incarnation. Predominantly, the layout has been altered to provide a more feature-focussed front page and a new style to go with it.

You’ll find a lead article with its nice big photo and several other feature articles which will stay on the left until I decide they should move. The regular ‘stream’ of articles will roll up the centre of the page over time as before.

The sidebar has been somewhat simplified and may yet undergo some more change. For now, you can access the much-reduced list of categories for major groupings of articles and the new tags for a more detailed approach. So far I have tagged only the articles published this year. Soon I will go back through previous years and do some tagging there. Well, I tell myself I will do it soon.

So, here it is – it’s designed to be visited. Much as I’d prefer you keep up with RSS than not at all, please do drop by now and again to take in the new look and check out what’s featuring.

Edit: I should have added thanks to my brother for some style hints which made a good design great.

Lock up your children

Posted on by
Reply

I listen to a number of podcasts that emanate from various parts of the world.  Most notably the USA and the UK.  On one such podcast I have heard about the vaccine “Gardasil”.  What I have heard about it is not good.  Therefore I was concerned when I saw the recent story on Stuff: “Free anti-cancer shots extended to 12-year-olds.”

The article begins:

The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination is this month being made available to all girls aged 12 to 18. It was previously free in Canterbury only to 17 and 18-year-olds.

The vaccination protects against the two strains of human papillomavirus that cause 70 percent of all cervical cancer cases and 90 percent of all genital wart cases.

Sounds pretty good, right?  Well, the first clue is in how this vaccine is being rolled out.  Remember the whole Herceptin debacle?  There was an enormous amount of debate and media coverage because of the cost of the drug.  Well, Gardasil is expensive too.  Why is it being rolled out with no fuss and why are they broadening the scope of those who receive the drug so effortlessly?

Is this drug so good that our government are very keen to ensure the nation benefits as soon as possible?  Well, wasn’t that the argument behind Herceptin?  Ask yourself who stands to benefit from the situation.  Well, the drug company will certainly make money.  And presumably those who receive the vaccine will benefit by reducing their risk of contracting these forms of cancer, right?

Well.  Maybe.  I’ll stop talking now and simply direct you to this Google search.  Please do your own research before allowing your government to inject your children with anything.

40 revolutions of the sun

Posted on by
Reply

Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.

- Douglas Adams, from The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

Yes, I am quoting Douglas Adams again.  And I’ll keep doing it too.  He had a particularly obtuse view on life as a human on this planet and it is a view that we would all do well to keep in mind.

Despite the massive size of “space” we choose, in general, to set our own plane of existence related to the roughly common orbital plane of a modest number of planets and a large number of rocks around the star Sol, which we call “the sun”.  It is in the context of this orbital plane, and the revolution of our planet in it, that I have just completed another trip and have once again returned to the spot (relatively speaking, of course) whence I first began this journey.  Not only that, but it is the 40th such return.

One might consider that we are moving endlessly in circles within circles, rotations within orbits, but whilst the physical journey in 3 dimensions seems pointless, it is the journey in the 4th dimesion of time that brings new horizons.  It is really a nasty paradox bestowed upon us by either some god or evolution or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  To make the most of the time we have, we need to know what only time will tell.  The balance you make in your own personal version of that equation is what controls your quality of life.

Clearly one of my great learnings in my time is how to wax lyrical about matters philosophical.  But they say you only get out of life what you put in.  So, as I desire “more input” to inspire and challenge my mind, it seems only fair I should provide more output to inspire and challenge the minds of others and it is this I do on this blog.

It has also come to my attention, over the years, that not everyone thinks on the same plane and that, for some, these ramblings may be somewhat obtuse, obscure or just plain weird.  For those people I offer the more oft-quoted remarks befitting this occasion.  Simple?  Yes.  Succinct?  I guess.  Meaningful?  Not half!

Happy birthday to me,

Happy birthday to me…

Time is an illusion…

Posted on by
Reply

“…lunch time doubly so.” So ends the quote from the first chapter of the first book (of five) in the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy trilogy. The point being that nobody ever seems to have enough time to do what they want or need to do.

But I have managed to take things a step further. You see when I have time on my hands to get things done, as has been the case over the last 10 days of my Christmas break, I find myself too tired to make a good job of things, or in some cases even to start.

So why am I tired? Well, it seems to be because I have so much to do and therefore don’t get enough sleep. Or at least my brain has so much to do and keeps working long into the night.

Catch 22?

It’s time for a makeover

Posted on by
Reply

Please bear with me whilst the blog undergoes something of a radical redesign.  The basic layout has changed already but the colour scheme and details are not yet in place.  It will be easier to make these tweaks with the new look in place than trying to do it behind the scenes.  The picture in the header is just something I had handy to liven it up a bit.  It is a picture of the new Airbus A400M military transport aircraft.  In time, my own photos will again grace the top of the blog as before.

I also plan to retire the rest of the sittingduck.co.nz site (but not the recently introduced podcast.sittingduck.co.nz) but this, too, will take time.  In the meantime, everything is where it always has been.