Bend in the Weather

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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!

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

I read Jacinta's post and have to agree with the statements she made.
I'm a red blooded male with crazy hormones running around my body like the next person, yet I know there is a time and a place for such things.

Let's put it in clear context. "Pr0n has no place in a technical conference presentation."

One wouldn't show pr0n related images to their own grandmother or a stranger in the street.
Use this 'stranger in the street' or 'my own grandmother' as a general guide if you are unsure.

If you feel the need to resort to showing such images, you need to ask why.
Is your presentation that dull you need to distract your audience?
Are your presentation skills that poor you need to resort to cheap stunts to keep your audience interested?
Is your knowledge on the given topic limited and needs attention to be misdirected away from the main discussion point?
Are you sure all your audience is of legal age? Being a technical conference doesn't mean there aren't minors present. Keep this in mind.
As a parent, I would be outraged if my teenage child attended such a conference to be subjected to pornographic images.

Playing the 'pr0n card' in a presentation shows a lack of maturity and disregard for your audiences intelligence.
It really isn't 'witty' at all and quite offensive.

Feel free to use humour in your presentation to liven it up, but keep it on a neutral topic and not one that is controversial.
Remember - your presentation is supposed to educate people to your point of view. You won't do this if it polarises your audience!

You would expect a backlash to your presentation if it contained anti-semitic or a white supremacist suggestions... expect the same with anything controversial.

If in doubt, why not run your presentation prior to the conference via the organisers. It's much easier cleaning up the slides prior to the presentation rather than the egg you'll have on your face.

After SourceForge donated the Linux.com domain to the Linux Foundation, it has finally come back.

Whilst it's early days yet, I'm not overly impressed with the site and yearn for the good ol' Linux.com website.

The dark browns/black and oranges on the site looks like a propaganda website for Ubuntu (no offence Ubuntu... but it does appear that they are attempting to cash in on 'cool web colours' .. and not necessarily the easiest to read.)

Hopefully over time it will improve and these are just initial teething issues. I hope that the orange on white links disappear over time. I don't find them easy on the eye at all.

The new site contains a range of ideas submitted by the community. The site features news on both hardware and software, download links, forums and a blogging system.

Historically I haven't been a huge fan of the Linux Foundation, but hopefully they do listen to the community and represent it, and not just their own held opinions.

The site seems to aggregate views and news from other Linux sites, so it may end up being a fantastic portal to anything to do with Linux.

I agree that a co-ordinated central website for our much loved operating system is required. This will hopefully assist the average journalist on his discovery of Linux but also dispel widely held myths that competitors often throw around.

It will be interesting to see where the Linux Foundation market the website.
Will it be primarily for Linux novices looking for help, journalists wanting to cover Linux, or a valuable tech resource for the community or will it spin into a marketing website purely for the Linux Foundation; basically a membership round-up website so to speak.

It's early days yet for Linux.com, I just hope it becomes a resource for Linux users and potential converts. Personally, I liked the old website so I hope it lives up to it's former self.

Becoming just another marketing arm for The Linux Foundation serves only them and not the community. I hope this slippery slope isn't one we venture down and I'm sure it's not what SourceForge had in mind when handing over the domain.

Ever wondered why PulseAudio sucks so bad?

Sick of the multiple Audio stacks in Linux? (OSS/ALSA/PulseAudio).
Ever wanted to make sense of items like JACK,ESD,aRts and NAS or just confused with either GStreamer or xine?

Here is a clever overview of the sound systems that is Linux. (click the image for a larger view)/

Linux audio like it or not is a mess. Multiple layers providing the same functionality. It's a house of cards that often falls down.
Things have been hidden well in OSS/ALSA and it's not until demanding audio like HD codecs have started to make their way across that some of these issues are starting to be uncovered (the infamous 'popping' sounds).

PulseAudio has been poking and pushing ALSA in recent times, and as a result unearthed a number of issues.

I'm hopefully eventually we'll get to a single, simple but powerful audio stack. I'm not holding my breath though.