Friday, December 31, 2010
NYE in NY NY
Not long to go until midnight and the start of
2011. (It's 10.20 pm Friday.) Just been talking to someone who got here
over 12 hours ago to bag a good spot for the NYE party. Said New Year's
Eve in Times Square was on her bucket list.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Snowmaggedon
First time outside in 2 days into the white
chaos of NY's Snowmageddon III, in time to head over to Bryant Park and
its 100+ temporary "holiday shops" festival. Just the thing to ease the
end-of-year chills.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Before and After – the new MTA Workshop
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| Before - the Funding Submission and Business Plan |
On the left is the “before” – the submission I wrote for the MTA back in March 2009. It won $1.359 million in Federal Government funding. The MTA matched the funding and built this new $3 million Apprentice Training Centre shown on the right – “after”.
 |
| After - the outcome, the new MTA-GTS Workshop |
Chris Evans, Federal Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations officially opened the centre today. It will be a great asset to help kickstart the careers of the many young people who train here.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Dongle Wars - Broadband on an eeePC
They said it couldn’t be done – get wireless broadband via a dongle on my netbook running Linux.
Hah!
Go to any high street retailer of mobile broadband services such as Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, Three and Virgin and ask if their gadget works on Linux.
“Sorry”, they’ll say, “it only works on Windows or Mac”.
They are wrong. It was like being told in 1985 that you couldn’t access the embryonic internet with one of those new fangled Macintoshes. They said Macs didn’t have the F keys that you needed at that time for the log-on process. So I just telnetted around a few archives until I found a software F-key emulator, FTP’d it across and used it to log onto their system and send them emails complaining that I could access it on a Mac when they promised me I couldn’t.
Nowadays I have one of the early netbooks, a very cute, very tiny, Asus eee PC. In the days before Blackberries and iPhones, a netbook with a cheap, pre-paid wireless broadband “dongle” (a thumb-sized, plug-in broadband modem that looks like a fat USB memory stick) was an ideal solution for occasional use. I still use it when travelling. No bigger than a slim paper-back book, it is still very convenient and prepaid wireless broadband is much cheaper than the internet fees in hotels and the like.
However, the Linux operating system is Open Source software, and that is anathema to Microsoft and Apple who own the proprietary Windows and Mac operating systems. And it seems as if the retailers are either colluding with them or have been competely conned by their propaganda.
There is nothing intrinsically ‘wrong’ with any of these systems, they are all fine for a great range of business and personal computing activities. But to be told in 2010 that my Linux netbook could not use wireless broadband was bizarre.
None of the retailers nor their help desks could even begin to get their heads around using their products on Linux. Their “best” advice was to change the operating system to Windows XP. Yeah, right!
Many simply didn’t want to know – for them it was simply a case of “It can’t be done”. That was the ‘deja vu’ moment of being told that you couldn’t access the internet on the early Macs.
But it can be done. I have posted a fairly detailed explanation of the relatively straight-forward process on EEE user forums. If you are interested, this link will take you to a copy of those notes.
Hah!
Go to any high street retailer of mobile broadband services such as Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, Three and Virgin and ask if their gadget works on Linux.
“Sorry”, they’ll say, “it only works on Windows or Mac”.
They are wrong. It was like being told in 1985 that you couldn’t access the embryonic internet with one of those new fangled Macintoshes. They said Macs didn’t have the F keys that you needed at that time for the log-on process. So I just telnetted around a few archives until I found a software F-key emulator, FTP’d it across and used it to log onto their system and send them emails complaining that I could access it on a Mac when they promised me I couldn’t.
Nowadays I have one of the early netbooks, a very cute, very tiny, Asus eee PC. In the days before Blackberries and iPhones, a netbook with a cheap, pre-paid wireless broadband “dongle” (a thumb-sized, plug-in broadband modem that looks like a fat USB memory stick) was an ideal solution for occasional use. I still use it when travelling. No bigger than a slim paper-back book, it is still very convenient and prepaid wireless broadband is much cheaper than the internet fees in hotels and the like.
However, the Linux operating system is Open Source software, and that is anathema to Microsoft and Apple who own the proprietary Windows and Mac operating systems. And it seems as if the retailers are either colluding with them or have been competely conned by their propaganda.
There is nothing intrinsically ‘wrong’ with any of these systems, they are all fine for a great range of business and personal computing activities. But to be told in 2010 that my Linux netbook could not use wireless broadband was bizarre.
None of the retailers nor their help desks could even begin to get their heads around using their products on Linux. Their “best” advice was to change the operating system to Windows XP. Yeah, right!
Many simply didn’t want to know – for them it was simply a case of “It can’t be done”. That was the ‘deja vu’ moment of being told that you couldn’t access the internet on the early Macs.
But it can be done. I have posted a fairly detailed explanation of the relatively straight-forward process on EEE user forums. If you are interested, this link will take you to a copy of those notes.
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Anecdote for Fathers' Day
It was the 60s, and I was in a Linguistics tutorial.
At that time, a new breed of student was beginning to go to university in the UK, thanks to the recently introduced grants system – clever kids from ordinary families who otherwise could not have afforded it.
In this session we were talking about accents and dialects. As the only member of the group who had a regional accent (Birmingham) I was a ‘person of interest’ in a good sense. I was also the only male apart from the tutor. Everyone except me “spoke posh”.
We had talked about accents as they related to geographic areas, now we began to discuss accents as they related to social class.
To make a point, the tutor went around each member of the group in turn and asked, “What do you call your male parent?”
The responses from the young women varied: a couple of “Dad”s, a few “Daddy”s, a “Pop” and even a “Pops”.
As the answers went round the table I pretended first to be puzzled, then surprised and eventually mildly shocked.
By chance, I was last. He fed me the line beautifully. “And lastly Mr Short, what do you call your male parent?”
“Sir.”
Poor sucker. He didn’t see it coming. A good tutor, not much older than us, enthusiastic and knew his stuff. But he couldn’t read the sub-text, even as it happened.
He might have understood the theory and mechanics of regional accents but I understood the dynamics. In those days I used to speak like Ozzy Osborne, for pity’s sake. And of course I understood the dynamics of class accents, far better than the tutor or any of the young woman in the group, all of whom had upper crust accents and came from well-heeled families.
He took it at face value. He couldn’t see that I was making a statement about the dis-connect between academic understanding of a concept and actually living the reality; that I was ironically telling him “Yes, I get it” at the same time as sticking it to the posh chicks; and that I was letting them know that they shouldn’t make assumptions about a person’s background or capabilities based on his regional accent, just as they shouldn’t based on the jeans and tee-shirt I wore compared with the up-town frocks they wore.
There was a moment of embarrassed silence, then the now flustered tutor muttered, “Yes, well…” and hurriedly went on to the next topic. The posh chicks were eyeing me with peculiar interest.
At that time, a new breed of student was beginning to go to university in the UK, thanks to the recently introduced grants system – clever kids from ordinary families who otherwise could not have afforded it.
In this session we were talking about accents and dialects. As the only member of the group who had a regional accent (Birmingham) I was a ‘person of interest’ in a good sense. I was also the only male apart from the tutor. Everyone except me “spoke posh”.
We had talked about accents as they related to geographic areas, now we began to discuss accents as they related to social class.
To make a point, the tutor went around each member of the group in turn and asked, “What do you call your male parent?”
The responses from the young women varied: a couple of “Dad”s, a few “Daddy”s, a “Pop” and even a “Pops”.
As the answers went round the table I pretended first to be puzzled, then surprised and eventually mildly shocked.
By chance, I was last. He fed me the line beautifully. “And lastly Mr Short, what do you call your male parent?”
“Sir.”
Poor sucker. He didn’t see it coming. A good tutor, not much older than us, enthusiastic and knew his stuff. But he couldn’t read the sub-text, even as it happened.
He might have understood the theory and mechanics of regional accents but I understood the dynamics. In those days I used to speak like Ozzy Osborne, for pity’s sake. And of course I understood the dynamics of class accents, far better than the tutor or any of the young woman in the group, all of whom had upper crust accents and came from well-heeled families.
He took it at face value. He couldn’t see that I was making a statement about the dis-connect between academic understanding of a concept and actually living the reality; that I was ironically telling him “Yes, I get it” at the same time as sticking it to the posh chicks; and that I was letting them know that they shouldn’t make assumptions about a person’s background or capabilities based on his regional accent, just as they shouldn’t based on the jeans and tee-shirt I wore compared with the up-town frocks they wore.
There was a moment of embarrassed silence, then the now flustered tutor muttered, “Yes, well…” and hurriedly went on to the next topic. The posh chicks were eyeing me with peculiar interest.
Friday, September 03, 2010
Funding Win for Syngas
Congratulations to Syngas who have just won a $300,000 R&D grant for field trials of their ‘biomass to liquid fuel’ project.
This is one of the submissions I worked on with the Syngas team (see my post for 7 Aug 2010).
Biomass is organic material from plants which use sunlight to grow. It is a store of energy which can be converted into heat, electricity and transportation fuels.
Syngas will use waste biomass (organic material left over after harvest) and convert it to synthetic gas which, after a cleaning process, can be used to fuel engines or gas turbines or as a feedstock for liquid fuel production such as low-sulphur diesel.
It is great to be able to contribute to a project with potential for economic and environmental benefits.
This is one of the submissions I worked on with the Syngas team (see my post for 7 Aug 2010).
Biomass is organic material from plants which use sunlight to grow. It is a store of energy which can be converted into heat, electricity and transportation fuels.
Syngas will use waste biomass (organic material left over after harvest) and convert it to synthetic gas which, after a cleaning process, can be used to fuel engines or gas turbines or as a feedstock for liquid fuel production such as low-sulphur diesel.
It is great to be able to contribute to a project with potential for economic and environmental benefits.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Pedal Mod
Friday, June 25, 2010
Home Again
 |
| Our trusty Ducato van |
Highlights included: the house in Soubes in the Languedoc; three classic bridges in two days (Roman Pont du Gard, medieval Pont d’Avignon and the futuristic viaduct at Millau); train ride from Montpellier to Florence; the house in Umbria; driving the Ducato in Italy; Assissi and other Umbrian towns; lunch at Brian Chatterton’s olive farm near Orvieto; sharing our travels with good friends Greg & Rae and Bob & Pat; the late Spring in the UK; being with with family in England; the steam train to Bath; catcing up with good friends (Christie & Sheena, Chris & Mike, Rod & Lindsay, Gill & Kevin, Mick & Gill).
As always when I return after a time away I am reminded of one of my favourite quotes:
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. (T.S. Eliot)
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Confused Reverend
Astounded by televangelist Rev. Pat
Robertson's claim yesterday that the Haiti earthquake was a result of
that country's pact with the Devil. According to the confused Rev.,
Haitians swore a pact with Satan in times past to rid their country of
its French colonial masters. This is from the man who said liberal civil
liberties groups and homosexuals were at least partly responsible for
the 9/11 terror attacks.
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