Bend in the Weather (Entries tagged as news)

tzdata changelog

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:40:00 +1100

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

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:50:00 +1100

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!

Pimp my Duck!

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:50:00 +1000

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.

Long time between posts

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:41:00 +1000

Well it's been about 3 months since my last blog post.

What has happened in that odd 90 days? A lot and not much.

The last few months have been tough. I've been mostly wading through a pool of emotional jelly. Whilst movement has been slow and tedious, some good progress has been made.

Recently my family buried my grandfather. I can't say I felt overly close to him, so it came as a shock how much it affected me. It managed to dredge up a lot of family crap that I thought I had dealt with, but it seems such things are only buried and resurface when your guard is down. Quite a quandary really, you physically bury something to discover other items resurface in their place.

His death has made me re-evaluate my own life and mortality; subjects we often don't give much thought to. As a result, I've been quite a bit more reflective than usual.

One of the questions I have been rehashing has been:

'How do you wish to be remembered?'

I can't say I have the answer to that question yet (as I think it's more complex on reflection); particularly as you're likely to mean different things to different people.

I certainly don't wish for fame or fortune. That's not my style... though I would like to leave a positive influence on people.
How I go about this... doesn't appear to be clear cut either. I do believe it's part of life's journey and something one masters over a lifetime. I also believe the answer is a personal one and what is right for one person, may not be for another.

So yeah, it's been a deep, complex month or two.

On the coding front... I've been quite stagnant over this period. That said, I'm missing it and looking to get back into it. I have two large projects at the inception stage and I'm excited about making some good progress on those over the next few months. I'll release more details on both at an appropriate time.

I hope to blog a lot more regularly over the coming months, though I make no promises!

Welcome back Linux.com

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:03:00 +1000

Linux.com screenshot

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.

Winter Vegie Gardens

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:19:00 +1000

Regular readers of my blog will know that at the end of last year we moved into our new house. In February we completed our front garden, but as yet haven't started on the back yard.

I took two weeks off after Easter and spent the time doing some odd jobs around the house. When moving into a newly built place there's 1000's of small jobs to do. (I know, I've already completed one large white board of such tasks, and have another one on the go!)

Whilst we've drawn up what we want to do out the backyard, we are starting getting our planter boxes up and running, so we can enjoy some great winter vegies as soon as possible. Around late Winter/prior to the start of Spring I'll also be planting a series of fruit trees as well to help complement the vegetables. We'll also be planting a range of herbs amongst the vegetables, as many such herbs work as natural pesticides to keep the creepy crawlies out of our lovely green leafy vegies. Much better letting nature fight it then introducing a range of chemicals.

A quick visit to see Trevor and Glenda (thanks guys -- we really appreciate it!) resulted in getting some great red gum fence posts that we were able to convert in to free-standing planter boxes. By using red gum and some galvanised bolts, these boxes will last us years and hopefully return us some fantastic home grown produce!

We've built one box so far, and plan to build one more in the upcoming weeks (in between birthdays, and an over-flowing social calendar!). A big thanks also to our fathers for helping with the building process.

So how did it turn out?! Well, we're certainly happy with the results!
Now to get planting and enjoying some home-grown goodness in the next few months.

The raw material.	Front On View.
Front profile.	Rear profile.

Once the 2^nd planter box is completed, we'll be gravelling around the boxes (so it's easy to move in gardening equipment (like wheel-barrows, etc). I'm considering whether we need to put up a short fence to keep the dogs out... still be determined at this stage.

We'll also have a heap of composting/chip-barking to do under the proposed fruit tree locations. Slowly but surely the back yard is starting to take shape. I'm finding working in the garden is a great way to get away from the computer and a good outlet that isn't 'electronic'.

Seen your stimulus package?

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 01:14:00 +1000

The Australian Federal government announced the $12.2 billion Household Stimulus Package in the wake of the Worldwide Financial Downturn.

Payments are to have commenced during March, and the Tax Bonus for Working Australians in April. As yet I don't know anyone who has received them?

These payments are made up of:

A Tax Bonus for Working Australians of up to $900 for eligible taxpayers, depending on income thresholds.
A Single-Income Family Bonus of $900 to provide additional assistance for families that have one main income earner and may otherwise receive less assistance from the package than dual income families with similar household income.
A Farmer's Hardship Bonus of $950 which will be paid to farmers and others receiving Exceptional Circumstances related income support.
A Training and Learning Bonus of $950 to assist students, those returning to study or training, and some income support recipients.
A Back to School Bonus of $950 per child to assist low- and middle-income families eligible for Family Tax Benefit A with school-age children.

Whether you are for or against them... they are coming.

Has anyone out there received their 'Bonus'?
From all reports they are to be staggered out... yet I don't know an individual yet that has received them.

Would be happy to hear from someone that has got that 'cheque in the mail' so to speak.

Mobile Internet for the entire household and universal mobile phone chargers

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:27:00 +1100

Huawei, the Chinese company that ruffled a number of Cisco feathers have been pushing out a number of wireless 3G devices for wireless broadband for some years. You can find the Huawei devices like the E220 and E169 available from several Australian telcos for 'mobile Internet'.

I personally own a E169 on a Optus Pre-Paid Mobile broadband connection as a 'backup' for when my ADSL connection goes down.

This week at the Mobile World Congress being held in Barcelona Spain, Huawei has announced the release of i-Mo; a combined 3G wireless modem and Wifi router unit. This means one connection can now support multiple people.

Many people are already dropping a dedicated telephone line and the cost of ongoing line rental, such a device is certainly only going to grow this market more, as it can now move from a single user device to a household device.

However, the biggest news from the Mobile gathering is that we're likely to finally see a universal power adapter for mobile devices (so no need for a new charger whenever you upgrade that mobile phone). They are also suggesting up to 50% power savings when charging your phone. Don't hold your breathe, it won't become active until 2012. If only they could do the same with damn data connectivity cables!

One who plants a garden, plants happiness

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:26:00 +1100

In December we moved into our new house.

Like any new house there are a million tasks that need to be undertaken to make that house into a home.
Slowly but surely Pauline and I are undertaking these tasks.

Whilst the majority of the house is now set up as we desire inside (albeit a few pieces of furniture and moving boxes that seem to continually appear!), the outside has been relatively untouched. Looking out on dirt, rubble and left over building materials wasn't too inspiring.

We laid down approximately 24 metres (yup 24 metres!) of top soil over the Australia Day weekend after removing most of the rubble from the yard. Six hours of bob-cat work and we had it laid out and levelled. Whilst the top soil provides a great foundation for lawns and gardens, it also is a wonderful way to introduce a massive amount of dust and dirt into the house. We also laid about 2 metres of gravel with the bob-cat laying it out for the commencement of a side driveway for us.

I took last week off on work to put in a front garden. This would provide a few solutions:

Limit the amount of dust being brought in the front door.
Provide us with some inspiration.
'Complete' the front of the house and making it much more appealing to the passing eye.

We started by drawing up a rough plan of what we were after. We wanted a low maintenance garden, but something that was pleasant to look at, but also something that attracted native birds. As the front yard can be seen from the bedroom and Pauline's study, we were also after something inspirational.

One item I did want was a 2nd driveway, to provide access to the rear of the property. We have a 2.5m side gate, and a gravel driveway would be ideal to separate the garden from vehicles and machinery needing to get around the back. I wasn't overly keen on having the garden being stomped on by earth moving equipment. In addition, we could put an area behind the gate to store our trailer.

So after many, many hours in the last week, we've produced a garden we are extremely proud of. It's our first attempt at any serious gardening (do growing herbs and potted plants count?), so we actually surprised ourselves.

Here is a run down on the various stages we undertook. It should also help provide some steps to those wishing to undertake something similar.

Stage 1 - Starting point We had previously had the bob-cat operator in a few weeks earlier. He had laid down and levelled the top soil and some crushed rock for us. This was our starting point.	Stage 2 - Preparing the area We started by laying some treated pine (H4) as a boundary between the side driveway and the proposed garden. 3 additional metres of gravel was then placed on the driveway, and we shoveled and raked this out by hand. (in hindsight -- using a bob-cat would be recommended) Moving this much by hand isn't advised! Weed mat was then applied and pegged down to cover the proposed garden area.
Stage 3 - Laying the chip bark We ordered in 3 metres of chip bark and raked it out. It's about 4-6 inches deep, which helps reduce water evaporation and also provides another barrier against weeds. Now the chip bark is down, the defined areas of the garden can be made out.	Stage 4 - Creating a feature point A feature point in a garden is important, as it draws the viewer in. We decided on a centre feature point to utilise the shape and area we had defined in the garden. ¼ a metre of 20mm tuscan pebbles and another ¼ of a metre of 40mm tuscan pebbles where mixed together to create variety and randomness. The ½ metre of pebbles was then laid out in a 'pond' style shape and curved to break many of the straight lines in the garden.
Stage 5 - Adding garden pieces Garden pieces add curiosity to a garden and often provide the charm. Whilst the plants are the main aspect of a garden, it is often a good idea to add non-plant items to a garden to break up the garden and generate some interest. As we were going for a native/bush garden we added some 'rustic' elements such as the tree stump and the log (a disused/broken old fence post). In addition we wanted to attract native birds to the area, so we added a bird bath to the garden. The tree stump is strategically located so curious birds can fly/land on the tree stump and survey the surrounding area before venturing in for a drink/splash.	Stage 6 - Planting Now that the base of the garden has been established, we planted the succulents, trees, shrubs and flowers. We were after a native bush style garden, so natives and drought tolerant plants were used. We were also mindful of colour, shape, texture and foliage of all the plants selected. Doing so meant that we didn't create a static looking garden but one with visual depth and appeal. Many of these plants when established will grow out to 1-2 metres in width and height. This will provide a rather populated garden and one rich in colour, foliage and shade. Due to so many native plantings, it's likely to also be a hit with local bird and animal life.

The garden is quite attractive from all angles:

Here is some close ups of some the plants we planted:

We're extremely happy with the results, particularly seeing this is our first real attempt at gardening. Whilst it's daunting starting out, there is so much information available on the Internet, in books and at hardware stores/nurseries that it really isn't hard to locate the information you require.

Pauline now has a beautiful view out of her office window, and we wake to a lovely garden each morning.
It's definitely not a weekend job, and it did take us the entire week to do. (Though a very warm summer and not being the fittest people going around probably dragged that out). In addition we had to go get supplies on a regular basis which ate into 'gardening time'.

So if you are wanting to put in a garden and remove that dead brown grass I highly recommend it. It's much more pleasant and lively to look out on, and will help attract native birds into your part of the world. Whilst we could have also paid a landscaper to come and do all the hard work for us, we ended up saving thousands and have a great sense of accomplishment. It's well worth the investment in labour and time. On the finance side, we hit just over $500 which is quite cost effective.

Finishing Touches
We are going to put in a pathway from the side gate to the front door. I'm picking up a bunch of red gum sleepers and will be cutting them in half and burying them into the chipbark to provide a nice rustic path via red gum steppers. Even better, I'll pick them up for free after a barter was undertaken (configure up a Samba server for him, and access to the sleepers I would like). Now that's using Linux in ya garden!

We have some garden lights that we may eventually run down the driveway/path to the front entrance. We do have a sensor light there, so I'm undecided at this stage if we need them out the front (we also have a street light opposite us, which provides a lot of night light). If I don't use them around the front, we will redeploy them around the backyard.

Inauguration Day 2009

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:36:00 +1100

I'm perplexed why Australian's have got so swept up in the US Presidency (it's not like a change of government there in the past 30 years has changed much of the Australian-US foreign policy).

In a little over 11 hours, President-elect Barack Obama will be sworn in as their 44^th president. Yeah sure he's the first 'black' man.
I wonder if it will be like Rudd term we're seeing... all hype for 6 months, and the it's just status-quo; no real difference to any other elected president/prime-minister. Many broken promises, red-tape holding up change and the usual BS that goes with politics.

Australia needed a change (Howard had run his term.. and fresh blood was required), though I'm unsure if Kevin was a 'sweeping change' many were claiming. I suspect Obama will be the same. He might take the troops out of some of the war zones raging, but beyond that I can't see a major change in foriegn policy from the US, particularly as they are in a recession and likely to be facing a depression.

I'm expecting the usual over-the-top fanfare like only the US can do tomorrow. Our TVs will be full of it tonight and tomorrow.
For me, I'm not so much interested in all the fanfare, party hats, and balloons... but how he stacks up in a years time.

Really I'll miss Bush. I suspect many news reporters and anchors will as well. So much entertainment from the most 'powerful' person of the Western world. His Bush-isms will last a lot longer than any of his disastrous policy decisions. Comedy writers could not of improved the speeches he delivered!

At least he brought a smile to our faces, a quick chuckle at his expense, and a realisation that any fool with enough cash can run a country.

Just so you can remember how long we've had them and what some of them are... take a read through the Bush-isms. So what are your favourite Bush-isms?