Bend in the Weather

A fathers poem to his unborn child

2011-01-10T07:19:42Z

I sit down now to pen this note,
Of how I feel, and of love denote.
For in a few weeks you shall appear,
A fulfilment of love sincere.

I look forward to cradling you in my arm,
Able to protect you from any harm.
A tender kiss and soothing word,
A gentle stroke, nurtured.

As you grow from baby to child,
Learning from experiences you have compiled.
Always remember I am close by,
A guiding hand you can rely.

I look forward to many an embrace,
My arms open when you need their place.
My knee is yours for a horsey ride,
My ears listening to your story side.

As you migrate from child to adult,
Remember I am here to consult,
I promise to be there until I die,
For you are the apple of my eye.

When customer profiling and targeted advertising goes wrong

2010-07-25T00:10:00Z

Don't get me wrong... I love a bargain as much as the next guy or girl.

What I don't like however is when a computer system is implemented with little regard and isn't actively checked by a human.
It's one way to make your company look like a jack-ass.

Sorry Woolworths - you've landed yourself in such a category.

Most Australian supermarket shoppers are aware of the fuel discounts offered by Coles and Woolworths, which can slice anything from $0.03 - $0.20 per litre of the cost of your fuel. Something that's always welcome by motorists.

It's the only reason I have an everyday rewards card. Fuel discounts add up over time, even more so for myself, as I drive with LPG the majority of the time, so $0.20 off per litre on LPG is quite substantial.

During the months of April and May Woolies decided that for 8 weeks straight I would like to buy wine. I'm not talking 1 bottle either. Most 'deals' require a purchase of 6 or more bottles in a given purchase.

A sample of the Email contents is included below:

To be honest, I love a good drop of red. Probably more so than the average punter. (We normally have a few dozen on hand in the house). At the end of March I had let our stocks go down over a period of time so had restocked. This seems to have triggered their rewards system to pester me for the next 8 weeks straight. No fuel offers (which was the main selling point of the card), nor any other offer... just grog.

At 6 bottles minimum per Email over 8 weeks, anyone reading my Email from Woolworths, would think I'm an alcoholic!

The crazy thing... It backfired.
I didn't buy any wine during that period. (As I had just restocked my levels.) This form of marketing happens 'after the fact', and as such it fails. If I have already made a bulk purchase, why would I wish to repeat it shortly after, and every week for a period of 8 weeks?

Woolworths reward system needs looking at. (As does Coles for that matter). It would be more beneficial to flag such bulk purchases of your customers, then look at sending it out 'specials' say every 3,6 or 12 months... you're likely to have a bigger uptake. I can't see my car dealership sending out a "buy a brand new car" Emails if I had just taken delivery of a new vehicle.

Certainly for everyday staples, it would be nice to have these filter through regularly. However don't see these, like 25% off either Meat, Fruit or Vegies for a week. It seems to be items like Coca-Cola, Alcohol and other non-essentials. I'm not surprised though... the supermarkets know we need staples.. and are trying to increase our trolley sizes by teasing us into buying these non-basic item.

Certainly I do hope that Woolworths and Coles both learn that their average shopper has the intelligence above that of a broken trolley wheel, as the current marketing strategies to date are quite insulting.

Can't beat 'em, join 'em

2009-12-09T13:11:38Z

Well I ranted in my previous post about being held hostage to Farmville.

It was in jest and was poking my adorable wife....

I bit the bullet in the end, and finally joined Facebook and even bloody Farmville.
There should be a law against that game, it's far too addictive.

So dear reader, I'm still wiping egg off my face... I held out for years and didn't see the point of it... but it looks like I've slipped and fell on it.

Though, I gotta admit this whole FB think is great for keeping in touch with long lost friends.... it's really quite scarey.
Pity one can't always seem to shake those people you'd rather forget.

I'm not yet on Twitter, but who knows what 2010 will hold in store.

Innocent Farmville hostage.

2009-11-15T00:23:00Z

It would appear that even whilst I don't use either Twitter or Facebook -- I happen to be held hostage often to Farmville.

I have elected not to join either two communities for several reasons:

I seriously spend far too many hours a day on a computer (12-18 hours a day). I don't need something else to add to the hours.
I like keeping some level of personal privacy. I really don't have a need to post what I ate for breakfast, what my favourite book/movie/music/clothing is. (You really want to know my favourite music is -- follow me on last.fm). I also have a blog where I can write down my thoughts/opinions/frustrations already.
I have multiple methods to keep in touch with those I elect to already. (Email, IM, Telephone, SMS). I seriously couldn't give a flying razoo about people I went to primary/high school/Uni with. I haven't seen them for over 20 years, and I don't have the desire to kindle the relationship due to the mere fact we attended the same education institution (and for the majority of that time -- compulsory; I'm sure neither of us wanted to be there!)

Having said that -- I don't object to others that do use the services. Each to their own I say. (But don't expect me to accept invites for either -- both are duly ignored!)

Pauline is a Facebook user, she enjoys it... she catches up with a lot of old friends via it. She has put off joining Farmville for months, but finally caved to the constant barrage of invites and joined.

I now seems our daily life resolves around 'harvest time'... a classic case of seeing the Farmville Alarm come into effect. An often quoted phrase at present is

'Ohh, I have to go harvest X .... gimme 10 mins.'

This can happen at the most inconvenient times.

So at present, I feel I'm affectively a Farmville hostage. I'm wanting a virtual world-war to break out so that bombers blow up the fields. I might get a bit of normality back in my life.

Teddy bear moments

2009-10-19T15:15:00Z

I think we can all attest to the phenomenon known as the Teddy Bear troubleshooting.

I think we all probably need our own Teddy Bears in each of our ~~human office box~~ cubicles or work desks.

So next time you need to do some serious troubleshooting or some heavy lifting when debugging - try pulling out the Teddy Bear.
Even better, you can hug something after it's solved!

tzdata changelog

2009-10-17T21:40:00Z

Often changelogs have important information on why a package was updated. Other times, they are just humorous:

tzdata (2009n-0ubuntu0.9.04.1) jaunty-proposed; urgency=low

* Add argentinas-dst-2009.diff: Disable DST switch for Argentina tomorrow,
as the Argentina government decided yesterday. Careful planning is boring.
Thanks to Margarita Manterola for the patch! (LP: #453165)

-- Martin Pitt Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:22:39 +0200

Helping to solve the pain in the back

2009-10-12T12:50:00Z

Pain is something over the years I've learnt to live with. Well 'live' is probably a little strong, 'cope with' is probably a more accurate description.

I've been diagnosed about 10 years ago with Scheuermann's Disease, and whilst it does sound scary, it basically isn't life threatening or something contagious. Throw in for good measure a dose of Scoliosis, and you can see my back health is more like a car crash.

I've also managed to injure my back about 8 years ago quite seriously that has never recovered. As a result of the 3, I'm in some level of pain almost all the time. It ranges from mildly annoying, to painful enough that it takes your breath away. Pain over such a long period of time does wear you down mentally, as it's a constant mental battle in order to keep the wolves at back so you can attempt some resemblance of a normal life.

Unfortunately the nature of my job (System Admin) means I spend long hours sitting. This has a tendency to stiffen up my back. Car rides longer than two hours can be extremely painful.

Over the years I've tried a number of different therapies to try and alleviate the pain so that I can enjoy life more. This has ranged from:

Chiropractic Manipulation
Acupuncture
Sports massage/Deep tissue massages
Chinese Massage
Gym work
Swimming
Explored medical surgical procedures

Each has worked to a certain level, yet nothing that moved beyond a little relief. In some cases it only aggreviated the pain and stiffness.

After a while, it feels like a long painful lesson in futility.

Over the years I've managed to ride this storm of pain through a variety of methods.... not all are recommended however.
This has included dosing up on heavy sedatives and 'sleeping through' the pain (not recommended), using alcohol to numb the body (also not recommended), heat packs, heat rubs, and regular stretching and movement throughout the day. Unfortunately up until this point, medicine has failed to find a 'solution' to my problem.... and resulted in several of these unorthodox approaches.

Family members for some time have been harassing me to visit their Chiropractor over the years. I'd been to 'bone crunchers' before and whilst I had some initial relief, it normally saw me being sore for 3-4 days afterwards, and no lasting relief. I was sceptical to say the least. They calmly reassured me that she didn't use such 'arcane' measures.

My back hasn't been improving over the years. I'm often numb down one side, and often experience pins and needles in my fingers. It's not uncommon to be in pain from my neck, shoulders, back, arms, and buttocks in one sitting. (no pun intended).

I really had started to believe it was my lot in life, that I was destined to experience pain and increasing pain the older I got. I really wasn't looking forward to 20-30 years time. Whilst I'm in my 30's, and it's just bearable.. I had asked myself - "How the hell am I going to cope with this when I'm 50 or 60?"

In order just to shut-up my harassing family, I thought I would visit this person they kept demanding I go see. (Yeah I am stubborn -- deal with it!)
I was expecting to visit a few times, find that it's nothing different to the numerous other paths I had taken and I could cross that off the list as well (and shut them up in the process!)

I rang to make an appointment, and found I couldn't get in for some 6 weeks. She was away at a conference. Normally I would kindly tell the receptionist don't worry and I'll call back (and probably not). For some reason I didn't... Five and a half weeks past... and I didn't give it much thought and I saw the appointment blinking in my calendar. I watched in dread as the day loomed.

The day arrived, and I thought I would go along with an open mind.
I'm glad I did.

To say I've never done anything like it would be an understatement. What she had to say made a lot of sense. Through body manipulation and specially designed stretches I was starting to feel immediate results. That's not saying it was easy, in fact it's damn hard work.

After discussing further with her over the hour consultation I learnt she had been studying Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabization (DNS - and not that DNS!). She had just returned from Prague where the leading expert in the field (Professor Kolar) had been presenting on it.

It's intensive therapy over a period of approximately 6-12 weeks, and exercises 3-4 times a day, and sessions 1-2 times a week during that period.
I've just returned from my third session this afternoon, and whilst I'm sore for the treatment (lasts a few hours). I have been having some fantastic results.

This weekend saw me travel 7 hours in a car (something I would never consider beforehand), with the only side-effect being fatigue, lifted a freezer, and shoveling a metre of crushed rock. Only weeks ago, any one of these activities would have resulted in me being laid up on my back for a day or two, and struggle through pain for several weeks later.

I'm no expert in Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabization, but from a lay-person undertaking it - it's basically 'brain training' and teaching your brain to move your muscles correctly. Often when we injure ourselves we limp or compensate. If it's a prolonged injury, this limping remains, even after the initial injury has healed. This compensation puts undue stress on other parts of our body, not designed to handle that load. DNS reverses this 'limping' and reverts the body back to it's natural position (millions of years of evolution can't be wrong!). It's this re-training of the brain out of the compensation state and into a normal healthy state that DNS addresses.

It does address 'core strength' that we often here about, but goes well beyond it. It's techniques that the patient can use for life.

So if you do have ongoing back pain, and have felt like you've tried everything without much success, I would highly recommend you do the research and find a practitioner in your area of Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabization. What have you got to lose except maybe that painful back.

It's working for me!

Perspective

2009-10-03T03:48:00Z

MX is a free commuter magazine published in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

A regular feature, they ask commuters a question.

Given their time again, I think John and Claire would answer differently.

Source: PhotoBasement

Joining the Netbook world

2009-10-01T02:51:00Z

I may be a slow adopter but I've finally jumped on the Netbook bandwagon.

I've been toying with the idea of getting hold of one of these beasties for a little while, and today a deal on Zazz! came up I couldn't resist.

They have the Asus Eee PC S101 for an amazing $444AUD. I'd seen them around the $999 price tag only as recent as March this year. (I think they are $599 RRP currently).

So in went my order.

Now -- what Netbook distro should I run on it (Windows XP Home is coming off immediately when it arrives).
I've looked at gOS and the Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

Any ideas/thoughts on the preferred Linux OS to run on such a beastie are greatly welcomed!

Pimp my Duck!

2009-09-24T04:50:00Z

Chris, a friend of mine has been able to do some fun electronics hacking for a worthy cause.

Chris has entered into The Great Brisbane Duck Race, a competition run by PA Foundation which sponsor the Prince Alfred Hospital. All monies raised will be used for Cancer research.

So what is the Great Brisbane Duck Race I hear you say?
Well it's not the infamous Ernie from Sesame Street rubber duckie:

In a nut-shell:

Purchase a rubber duckie from PA Foundation

Pimp your duck -- add a motor, jet engine, whatever you think is appropriate to make it the speediest duck around

Go down to the competition on the day

Navigate without sinking the 100m water course

Ensure your duck passes the line first to win!

Chris has been making some good progress, and been blogging about the project.

In fact he even has a YouTube video showing his current results.

The competition is being held on Saturday 26^th September at 2:40pm on the Brisbane River (in front of South Bank where the new Brisbane Big Wheel is located).

Whilst I won't be there in person cheering Chris on, I will be one of his virtual supporters!
If you're in Brisbane, head down for a great day and support such a worthy cause.