Turned Skyward

Long Time, No Blog

admin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 05:59:56 +0000

Gah, almost two months since I last blogged.

Here, have a couple of pictures of shiny things to tide you over while I think of something to say…

Night Lights

Brian — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:03:28 +0000

The Canadian Navy just celebrated 100 years of existance, and here in Victoria we lit things on fire, shone lights around, and blew stuff up. The usual.

Slightly more seriously, there was an excellent 15 minute long firework display, and as I’d volunteered with a local group to work with the lanterns and light art that was part of the display, about fifteen of us got the best seats in the city for the fireworks, right out on Fisgard Island.

More on my Flickr set. My little camera does surprisingly good night & firework shots, actually.

Automotive Entitlement Revisited

Brian — Thu, 27 May 2010 05:06:47 +0000

Back in September of 2009, a cyclist was killed by a motorist in Toronto; I blogged about the beginning of the mess in Automotive Entitlement (Again).

Now the Guardian tells us Top Canadian lawyer told he will not face trial over Toronto cyclist’s death, while the CBC’s headline is Charges against Bryant in fatal crash withdrawn.

Even better, and even more flagrant, road-raging Bryant is considering a return to politics. Anyone running against Mr. Bryant would be well advised not to show up at political events on a bike.

So the moral of the story, folks: killing someone with your car doesn’t even need to be more than an eight-month interuption to your political career. It was only a bicyclist, after all. People who matter drive cars.

On May 20th, This Might Not Be Just A Stick Figure

Brian — Thu, 20 May 2010 22:20:05 +0000

Because May 20th is not just another day, and this might not be just a stick figure.

And if this stick figure offends you, consider whether it’s the stick figure – or you.

Last Hawaiian Photos

Brian — Fri, 14 May 2010 02:40:58 +0000

Just a few photos from the last day or two of our Hawaiian trip at the end of April. We covered a lot of ground in a week, put almost 500km on the rental car and managed to get most of our “Must See” list done. None of us are huge fans of sitting around on the beach getting sunburnt, so we did stuff instead.

The entire Oahu set on Flickr.

If Science Really Was A Religion

Brian — Mon, 10 May 2010 05:39:58 +0000

Via the excellent, take-no-prisoners Pharyngula, Richard Dawkins on some basic methodology differences between science & religion. Funny, and very, very true.

YouTube Video Link

More Hawai’i

Brian — Fri, 07 May 2010 05:23:03 +0000

It’s taking me longer to go through the photos from the trip than the trip itself took. I apparently shot 90+ photos per day (about 680 in a week!), and poking through them a bit at a time pads the return to reality a bit, at least.

Updates, Lucid, Oahu, Etc

Brian — Sun, 02 May 2010 06:23:29 +0000

Haven’t blogged in over a month – so much for regular updates and such. Oh well.

New version of Ubuntu is out, haven’t upgraded yet due to lack of hard drive space – still haven’t done the warranty RMA on my big, but glitched, 500GB drive. Maybe next week. I have played with Lucid on my brother’s machine – WTF is the thinking behind the wandering window control buttons? I stopped playing with Ubuntu/GNOME themes several releases ago – the defaults worked fine and looked OK – but wandering window buttons are irritatingly stupid, especially on an LTS release. Reverting to the older, saner (browner…) theme will have to be the first thing I do once I do move up to 10.04.

I already get rid of the multi-user-switcher thing and the seperate power-management widget as useless panel clutter on this single-user desktop machine; possibly my perferences for the ideal Ubuntu appearance fossilized several releases ago?

In more personal, cooler news, just got back from a week in Hawai’i. Never been before, and I loved Oahu, despite Honolulu’s traffic! I’m still going through several hundred photos, but here’s a few favourites from the first couple of days of the trip!

Quick Links to Amusing Things, 31 March 2010

Brian — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 06:08:54 +0000

8-Bit NYC. This is why you open data, so that people can do very strange & awesome things with it.

Snow (1963). Trains, an English winter, and some experimental filmmaking. Very neat.

Imperial Leftovers

Brian — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:32:41 +0000

The survival into the modern era of random bits of the colonial/imperial era has always interested me.

Bagpipes are also kind of cool. When outdoors.

Thus, The Bagpipes of Palestine from the BBC. Amazing what survives against long odds, isn’t it?