Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote
- Benjamin Franklin
Friday, September 18, 2009
Quote of the however long its been since the last one
- Benjamin Franklin
Monday, September 14, 2009
A Good Kind of Ache
I packed a fair bit of fun into the weekend. Consumed a healthy portion of delicious Japanese food on Friday night. Interesting conversations over such wonderful yums as pork belly skewers, wagyu beef steak and fried chicken skin, it was difficult to drag myself away. I had to though, as there was a going away party which I wasn't going to miss for the life of me.
By any fair judging, I'd have to say that we successfully drank enough booze and talked enough shit to ensure a safe and enjoyable trip for our guest of honour. Just incase it wasn't, after completing the trip to the aquarium, we played copious amounts of board games until the wee hours.
I slept in until midday to recover. Me, sleeping until midday. Unheard of. But required, as the weather cleared up and provided perfect conditions for an excellent 3v3 game of gridiron down at the park. My team won! I scored a touch down! I also threw a touch down pass! I like using exclaimation marks!!
A big dinner of spag bog and a high definition episode of Band of Brothers completed the weekend in fantastic fashion. This all sets me up for a big monday of poker, watching NFL, updating my CV and kicking off the hunt for a new job.
Wait, what's that? New job? Tune in next time for more details!
By any fair judging, I'd have to say that we successfully drank enough booze and talked enough shit to ensure a safe and enjoyable trip for our guest of honour. Just incase it wasn't, after completing the trip to the aquarium, we played copious amounts of board games until the wee hours.
I slept in until midday to recover. Me, sleeping until midday. Unheard of. But required, as the weather cleared up and provided perfect conditions for an excellent 3v3 game of gridiron down at the park. My team won! I scored a touch down! I also threw a touch down pass! I like using exclaimation marks!!
A big dinner of spag bog and a high definition episode of Band of Brothers completed the weekend in fantastic fashion. This all sets me up for a big monday of poker, watching NFL, updating my CV and kicking off the hunt for a new job.
Wait, what's that? New job? Tune in next time for more details!
Monday, September 07, 2009
Quote of the Whatever Time Frame
Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it.
- Edsger Wybe Dijkstra
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Juggling, Epiphanies, Processes
The enjoyment I take from juggling stems from the cocktail of emotions you can feel during a good session. From the intense frustration and anger I feel when I'm constantly failing to learn a pattern or, worse still; cocking up a pattern that I know I've mastered long ago. To the unbridled joy gained from successfully completing a new pattern for the first time. Combined with the long tail of the juggling learning curve it means that its a hobby where I can continuously challenge myself to learn new things.
I find that there are two key moments when I'm learning a new pattern or trick. An initial moment of epiphany when I'm first able to complete it successfully and then the moment when I realise that I'm now able to repeat it without any conscious thought. The 1st time you complete something it often feels awkward, rushed or just plain messy, but it is still a very satisfying moment. I then repeat and practice the trick, focusing on being smooth, controlled, precise and flowing. I'm building up muscle memory and finally will be able to hand the trick off to my subconcsious. At that point I take great enjoyment from the sense that I now have that knowledge contained somewhere in my grey matter, able to seemingly automatically recall it at any time.
I've found that my process for learning new patterns or tricks comes in two very different types;
1) concentrated, focused effort to learn a particular pattern
2) from random experimentation during a session when in the zone
The 1st situation really requires me to be in the correct frame of mind before even starting to juggle. Its the process required when I'm learning something from someone face to face, via youtube videos or from a juggling pattern animation program. Usually I've picked up my balls with the specific plan of learning something new. I'll break down the pattern into sections and work out what each hand needs to be doing. While practicing each throw individually, I'll be extremely focused on visualising where each ball will be travelling and try to work out a rhythm. Then its just time, patience, practice and dedication. This process can become very frustrating and I often finish sessions without "getting it", feeling disapointed and unco-ordinated. However, the enjoyment gained when I finally nail something that I've really struggled with is extremely satisfying. Most of my favourite tricks were ones which "put up a fight" when I was learning.
The 2nd situation is far more wonderous and hard to explain. The goal of most juggling sessions is to "get into the zone". That special situation where I feel totally at ease, perfectly confident that between my hands, the balls and gravity, everything is in balance. Patterns flow into each other and the momentum of the balls lead me to string certain patterns together. During these moments of flow, with my brain working so fast that time dilates and gravity seems to fade slightly, occassionally my hands will find a pattern which I had no forethought of.
Early on in my career the chaotic imperfections of my throws lead to this happening quite often. Since youtube wasn't around back then and I didn't have a juggling mentor, it was how I stumbled onto a lot of basic patterns. These days I really enjoy juggling with background music is because I'm able to use changes in the music to trigger changes in my patterns. Its incredible how your body/brain can react to make an unusual catch or throw to stay in time with the beat or to react to a break. The times when those strange chaos throws feel good, I'll try repeating it and attempt to lock it into my subsconcsious.
Anything that is around 110 to 160 bpm works a treat. I match the music to my mood and then the type of balls to the tempo of music. Heavy balls for meaty hip hop, with lots of over hand grabs slapping the catches in time with the backbeat. Lighter balls for dancey tracks (Daft Punk and Kraftwork are amongst the best music of this), the faster tempo leads me towards tight site swaps and Mill's mess style arm crossing.
I've lost access to the video camera, so no footage! D'oh.
I find that there are two key moments when I'm learning a new pattern or trick. An initial moment of epiphany when I'm first able to complete it successfully and then the moment when I realise that I'm now able to repeat it without any conscious thought. The 1st time you complete something it often feels awkward, rushed or just plain messy, but it is still a very satisfying moment. I then repeat and practice the trick, focusing on being smooth, controlled, precise and flowing. I'm building up muscle memory and finally will be able to hand the trick off to my subconcsious. At that point I take great enjoyment from the sense that I now have that knowledge contained somewhere in my grey matter, able to seemingly automatically recall it at any time.
I've found that my process for learning new patterns or tricks comes in two very different types;
1) concentrated, focused effort to learn a particular pattern
2) from random experimentation during a session when in the zone
The 1st situation really requires me to be in the correct frame of mind before even starting to juggle. Its the process required when I'm learning something from someone face to face, via youtube videos or from a juggling pattern animation program. Usually I've picked up my balls with the specific plan of learning something new. I'll break down the pattern into sections and work out what each hand needs to be doing. While practicing each throw individually, I'll be extremely focused on visualising where each ball will be travelling and try to work out a rhythm. Then its just time, patience, practice and dedication. This process can become very frustrating and I often finish sessions without "getting it", feeling disapointed and unco-ordinated. However, the enjoyment gained when I finally nail something that I've really struggled with is extremely satisfying. Most of my favourite tricks were ones which "put up a fight" when I was learning.
The 2nd situation is far more wonderous and hard to explain. The goal of most juggling sessions is to "get into the zone". That special situation where I feel totally at ease, perfectly confident that between my hands, the balls and gravity, everything is in balance. Patterns flow into each other and the momentum of the balls lead me to string certain patterns together. During these moments of flow, with my brain working so fast that time dilates and gravity seems to fade slightly, occassionally my hands will find a pattern which I had no forethought of.
Early on in my career the chaotic imperfections of my throws lead to this happening quite often. Since youtube wasn't around back then and I didn't have a juggling mentor, it was how I stumbled onto a lot of basic patterns. These days I really enjoy juggling with background music is because I'm able to use changes in the music to trigger changes in my patterns. Its incredible how your body/brain can react to make an unusual catch or throw to stay in time with the beat or to react to a break. The times when those strange chaos throws feel good, I'll try repeating it and attempt to lock it into my subsconcsious.
Anything that is around 110 to 160 bpm works a treat. I match the music to my mood and then the type of balls to the tempo of music. Heavy balls for meaty hip hop, with lots of over hand grabs slapping the catches in time with the backbeat. Lighter balls for dancey tracks (Daft Punk and Kraftwork are amongst the best music of this), the faster tempo leads me towards tight site swaps and Mill's mess style arm crossing.
I've lost access to the video camera, so no footage! D'oh.
Friday, August 14, 2009
District 9
I blame Peter Jackson for making me appear to be a selfish, forgetful and all round useless bastard. Last night at the last minute we decided to go see District 9 at the cinema, completely derailing my plans to call my wonderful older sister on her birthday.
On the upside, the movie was beyond awesome. I was greatly reminded of Peter Jackson's 1st movie, the incredible Bad Taste. Totally over the top gore and effects which bookend around a sci fi storyline crafted wonderfully out in left field. The dash of social commentary and the wonderful South African accents round it out nicely. Basically I agree with these 7 reasons to go see District 9.
On the upside, the movie was beyond awesome. I was greatly reminded of Peter Jackson's 1st movie, the incredible Bad Taste. Totally over the top gore and effects which bookend around a sci fi storyline crafted wonderfully out in left field. The dash of social commentary and the wonderful South African accents round it out nicely. Basically I agree with these 7 reasons to go see District 9.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
In Case You Didn't Know
Hard earned blisters have all but healed
The torn flesh mended, tender yet resealed
Last of the physical reminders retreat
Leaving only memories of things incomplete
Dreams I was fed which took root and grew
Pushed me away and you've taken them with you
The torn flesh mended, tender yet resealed
Last of the physical reminders retreat
Leaving only memories of things incomplete
Dreams I was fed which took root and grew
Pushed me away and you've taken them with you
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Foosball
On the weekend I went to see DrewMoney's housemate and his band rock out. Before and after his set (which was highly entertaining and very very rock) we claimed the pub's Foosball table.
There was some discussion about whether spinning was allowed, those making cases against spinning were easily drowned out by my triumphant outbursts each and every time I spun the shit out of my strikers and rammed another goal home.
There was some discussion about whether spinning was allowed, those making cases against spinning were easily drowned out by my triumphant outbursts each and every time I spun the shit out of my strikers and rammed another goal home.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Ain't It?
Ain't it strange how life can twist and turn
Isn't it weird how love can sooth or burn
Don't you ponder how things ebb and flow
Doesn't it frustrate you how you can never know?
Isn't it weird how love can sooth or burn
Don't you ponder how things ebb and flow
Doesn't it frustrate you how you can never know?
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
OMG Comments
I'd been toying with a few different ideas about how to handle comments here on my crappy lifestream page. Twitter is so hot right now that I was really tempted to hax up a system which enabled people to tweet comments to posts, with my site simply doing a twitter search for any tweets tagged with a speical hashtag. This would have the upside of me not needing an authorisation system and also some spam advertising as my friends tweet'd about things on my site.
Never one to rebuild a wheel that already rolls pretty well, I googled around and found Chirrup; supposedly a simple javascripted system which I could drop in pretty damn easily. Only it didn't work. When I went looking for support I noticed that the guy who made Chirrup actually uses a system called Disqusto handle comments on his own blog.
Always check what the people in the know use.
So I've integrated Disqus into the site. Yay! It allows people to log in using facebook, twitter, openid or Disqus' own user authentication system. Or even guests (I'll see how this goes, I hate spam). It also has a very slick moderation / admin system and by being externally hosted it fits into my basic goal here on the lifestream; for it to be as portable to a new webhost as possible.
Never one to rebuild a wheel that already rolls pretty well, I googled around and found Chirrup; supposedly a simple javascripted system which I could drop in pretty damn easily. Only it didn't work. When I went looking for support I noticed that the guy who made Chirrup actually uses a system called Disqusto handle comments on his own blog.
So I've integrated Disqus into the site. Yay! It allows people to log in using facebook, twitter, openid or Disqus' own user authentication system. Or even guests (I'll see how this goes, I hate spam). It also has a very slick moderation / admin system and by being externally hosted it fits into my basic goal here on the lifestream; for it to be as portable to a new webhost as possible.
Slaberific
Exciting times are upon us here in our little corner of the planet. The slab for the house has been poured and we've been spending our weekends banging star pickets into the ground to slice and dice our 18 acres up into paddocks. Who knew making drastic changes to the earth would be so much fun?
I've got next week off work, a stretch of time which will be spent focusing on completing the internal fit out of the stables. This will include a concrete base down the center isle, 3m out the end for the wash bay and a 4m by 4m tackroom.
We'll probably get a chance to layout the framework for the house and perhaps look at stringing the electric braid on the fence lines. We're actually getting closer to getting out of this rental!
I've got next week off work, a stretch of time which will be spent focusing on completing the internal fit out of the stables. This will include a concrete base down the center isle, 3m out the end for the wash bay and a 4m by 4m tackroom.
We'll probably get a chance to layout the framework for the house and perhaps look at stringing the electric braid on the fence lines. We're actually getting closer to getting out of this rental!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Rain, Rain, Go Away
I'd probably get murdered by the local farmers if I said this in public, but all this rain we're getting is really hampering our building progress. Things have stalled once again as we wait for enough sunny days to dry out the soggy earth and allow us to pour the slab for the house.
We're near certain to have missed the end of June deadline to lock in the current first home owners grants and boosters. I'm a little uneasy relying on the liberal party to not get in the way of the governments plans to increase the bonuses from $25k to $36k as proposed in the 2009 - 2010 budget.
I'm glad that Utegate blew up in the lib's faces. Hopefully they won't be too eager to cause a double dissolution election.
We're also waiting on pouring the slab for the center aisle of the stables, after which we can put up the roller doors, build the internal stables and I can finally declare it done.
Then there's fencing.....
I just want to be making progress!
We're near certain to have missed the end of June deadline to lock in the current first home owners grants and boosters. I'm a little uneasy relying on the liberal party to not get in the way of the governments plans to increase the bonuses from $25k to $36k as proposed in the 2009 - 2010 budget.
I'm glad that Utegate blew up in the lib's faces. Hopefully they won't be too eager to cause a double dissolution election.
We're also waiting on pouring the slab for the center aisle of the stables, after which we can put up the roller doors, build the internal stables and I can finally declare it done.
Then there's fencing.....
I just want to be making progress!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Stable Nears Completion
I'm quite proud to say that the stable block is essentially errected. All that remains is installing the roller doors and doing the internal fit out to make it habitable for the animals.
Alas I don't have photos of the completed masterpiece yet, because the weather has been terrible (well, good in a way... we needed the rain). I'll grab some shots when I can, but can assure you that the 'sandbank' cream colour of the walls which I'd shown before are wonderfully offset by the dark blue-gray 'iron stone' guttering and flashing.
On to the house!
Hopefully if there's a break in the rain the slab will get poured this week. It's amazing to think that we're only just now getting this done, a year after the kit was delivered to the block. Suddenly we're racing against time to ensure we get the most in our 1st home builders grants and such. Its required that the foundations are laid before the deadline at the end of June.
Over the recent week I've had two of possibly the most physically draining days of building. The 1st was laying 250m of power cable (in conduit) from the building sites to the front of the property. In the rain. Trudging through sticky red clay mud. The 2nd was using a petrol engine powered 250mm hydrolic auger to dig fence posts in the same conditions and soil.
Alas I don't have photos of the completed masterpiece yet, because the weather has been terrible (well, good in a way... we needed the rain). I'll grab some shots when I can, but can assure you that the 'sandbank' cream colour of the walls which I'd shown before are wonderfully offset by the dark blue-gray 'iron stone' guttering and flashing.
On to the house!
Hopefully if there's a break in the rain the slab will get poured this week. It's amazing to think that we're only just now getting this done, a year after the kit was delivered to the block. Suddenly we're racing against time to ensure we get the most in our 1st home builders grants and such. Its required that the foundations are laid before the deadline at the end of June.
Over the recent week I've had two of possibly the most physically draining days of building. The 1st was laying 250m of power cable (in conduit) from the building sites to the front of the property. In the rain. Trudging through sticky red clay mud. The 2nd was using a petrol engine powered 250mm hydrolic auger to dig fence posts in the same conditions and soil.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Thirty
THe dust is settling on what was a fairly epic week of celebrations for my 30th. I was thrilled to have 22 people attending the dinner and a large number of these continue to kick on back at my place; braving the cold night air and rambling on into the wee hours of the morning.
My Grandmother made a surprise appearence on Sunday morning, as I was busily cooking recovery bacon and eggs breakfast for the hungry horde. Thankfully she was able to hang around over night and I skipped off from work early on Monday to play a few rounds of cards with the family and catch up.
My Parents, Sister, Brother in law and their wonderful little bub stuck around until yesterday. A little longer than planned, as our car broke down on the way to the airport and they missed the flight. Can't win em all I guess.
Because I was lazy and witnessed an already obscene number of digital cameras taking happy snaps over the whole week I didn't once pull out my own camera and get any photos. I regret this massively already, missing the oppotunity to get group photos of the Crazy 88 crew and my extended family was quite stupid. I hope other people have some good shots. I suspect most photos of the family gathering section of the festivities _might_ be monopolised by a certain cheeky little baby.
My Grandmother made a surprise appearence on Sunday morning, as I was busily cooking recovery bacon and eggs breakfast for the hungry horde. Thankfully she was able to hang around over night and I skipped off from work early on Monday to play a few rounds of cards with the family and catch up.
My Parents, Sister, Brother in law and their wonderful little bub stuck around until yesterday. A little longer than planned, as our car broke down on the way to the airport and they missed the flight. Can't win em all I guess.
Because I was lazy and witnessed an already obscene number of digital cameras taking happy snaps over the whole week I didn't once pull out my own camera and get any photos. I regret this massively already, missing the oppotunity to get group photos of the Crazy 88 crew and my extended family was quite stupid. I hope other people have some good shots. I suspect most photos of the family gathering section of the festivities _might_ be monopolised by a certain cheeky little baby.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
GoodBye Spurl, Hello Diigo
Cliff Notes: Spurl is one of the sites I pull data from for my "lifestream" page and they've been having some woes (for a while now, actually). I'd recently been checking out diigo as a replacement system. The continued downtime for spurl today pushed me into making the switch.
While the rest of the world started using del.icio.us and dig for their social bookmarking needs, I'd always kept using a nifty system from spurl.net for my online bookmarking. The reason was three fold;
1) I didn't care about sharing my bookmarks or finding people who were bookmarking the same sort of sites.
2) It had a kick ass javascript bookmark file that you clicked and it filled in the "create bookmark" form with the url from the previously active page and any text you had highlighted on the page filled in as the description.
3) It had a good rss output feed.
Alas spurl was extremely hard hit by spammers, since it was so easy to actually create bookmarks. The dev team seem to have moved their focus onto other things, so I can't see it getting fixed soon.
Along comes diigo, the new hip web2.0 social bookmarking site. Like the others its packed full of features I don't really care about. However, these guys also have the simple features I love in spurl! So I've switched over to using it to collect my bookmarks and feed its rss output into my lifestream pipe.
While the rest of the world started using del.icio.us and dig for their social bookmarking needs, I'd always kept using a nifty system from spurl.net for my online bookmarking. The reason was three fold;
1) I didn't care about sharing my bookmarks or finding people who were bookmarking the same sort of sites.
2) It had a kick ass javascript bookmark file that you clicked and it filled in the "create bookmark" form with the url from the previously active page and any text you had highlighted on the page filled in as the description.
3) It had a good rss output feed.
Alas spurl was extremely hard hit by spammers, since it was so easy to actually create bookmarks. The dev team seem to have moved their focus onto other things, so I can't see it getting fixed soon.
Along comes diigo, the new hip web2.0 social bookmarking site. Like the others its packed full of features I don't really care about. However, these guys also have the simple features I love in spurl! So I've switched over to using it to collect my bookmarks and feed its rss output into my lifestream pipe.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Information Control
Early tonight I kicked out a post detailing the recent happenings in my online poker career. After rereading it and pondering exactly who I was posting it for I deleted it. I also got to thinking about the much neglected poker focused wordpress blog I still had laying around. I wound up deciding to take it down from the web too, for much the same reason.
I figured that most of my poker buddies are well aware of how I'm running and what I'm thinking about poker at any given time, since we communicate constantly over IRC. Beyond that I always talk to my Dad about poker when I speak to him on the phone. My work mates realise I'm addicted to poker and I ramble about it from time to time to them. But not many of them are actually aware of the stakes I play or how much I've earned playing poker. So that really only left people who I was playing against online who googled my screen name and wound up finding my blog.
And why on earth would I want to give them more information about how I'm running or what I'm thinking about poker?
So for now I'll just sum up things in vague terms; currently poker isn't my big focus, building my house is. When the house is done and I'm back into the poker grind my focus will be on rebuilding my bankroll :)
I figured that most of my poker buddies are well aware of how I'm running and what I'm thinking about poker at any given time, since we communicate constantly over IRC. Beyond that I always talk to my Dad about poker when I speak to him on the phone. My work mates realise I'm addicted to poker and I ramble about it from time to time to them. But not many of them are actually aware of the stakes I play or how much I've earned playing poker. So that really only left people who I was playing against online who googled my screen name and wound up finding my blog.
And why on earth would I want to give them more information about how I'm running or what I'm thinking about poker?
So for now I'll just sum up things in vague terms; currently poker isn't my big focus, building my house is. When the house is done and I'm back into the poker grind my focus will be on rebuilding my bankroll :)
Resized Images
Over the last few days I've tinkered with a few things here on my lifestream page. The most significant was haxing in a dynamic image resizing system which creates thumbnails 400 pixels wide to be displayed nicely. Previously I was just uploading pre-thumbnailed images for inclusion in updates sucked in from spurl or elsewhere. This failed when I wanted to upload a higher resolution image on its own (like the pink storm trooper image).
So now I upload to photobucket at the original resolution of whatever the image is and my code downscales it while maintaining the correct aspect ratio.
So now I upload to photobucket at the original resolution of whatever the image is and my code downscales it while maintaining the correct aspect ratio.
Information Control
Early tonight I kicked out a post detailing the recent happenings in my online poker career. After rereading it and pondering exactly who I was posting it for I deleted it. I also got to thinking about the much neglected poker focused wordpress blog I still had laying around. I wound up deciding to take it down from the web too, for much the same reason.
I figured that most of my poker buddies are well aware of how I'm running and what I'm thinking about poker at any given time, since we communicate constantly over IRC. Beyond that I always talk to my Dad about poker when I speak to him on the phone. My work mates realise I'm addicted to poker and I ramble about it from time to time to them. But not many of them are actually aware of the stakes I play or how much I've earned playing poker. So that really only left people who I was playing against online who googled my screen name and wound up finding my blog.
And why on earth would I want to give them more information about how I'm running or what I'm thinking about poker?
So for now I'll just sum up things in vague terms; currently poker isn't my big focus, building my house is. When the house is done and I'm back into the poker grind my focus will be on rebuilding my bankroll :)
I figured that most of my poker buddies are well aware of how I'm running and what I'm thinking about poker at any given time, since we communicate constantly over IRC. Beyond that I always talk to my Dad about poker when I speak to him on the phone. My work mates realise I'm addicted to poker and I ramble about it from time to time to them. But not many of them are actually aware of the stakes I play or how much I've earned playing poker. So that really only left people who I was playing against online who googled my screen name and wound up finding my blog.
And why on earth would I want to give them more information about how I'm running or what I'm thinking about poker?
So for now I'll just sum up things in vague terms; currently poker isn't my big focus, building my house is. When the house is done and I'm back into the poker grind my focus will be on rebuilding my bankroll :)
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