Turned Skyward » flickr

More Reasons to Like My Webspace Provider

Brian Burger — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 06:12:47 +0000

This blog, and my various other web projects, are all hosted on Koumbit.org, a Montreal-based nonprofit technology co-op. They cost about the same as similar hosting packages elsewhere, but they’re technologically savvy, incredibly Open Source/Free Software friendly, help with Drupal, LGM and other FLOSS projects, and do a whole bunch of hosting for socially-relevant groups not just from Canada but overseas.

Case in point – what’s down at the bottom of the OpenMedia.ca site? “Hosted by Koumbit”. Awesome.

(and on a closely-related note to the OpenMedia link: on May 2nd, my fellow Canucks, remember your ABCs when you head to the polls…)

Twas The Night Before Christmas…

Brian Burger — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 08:36:13 +0000

Traditionally read on Christmas Eve, naturally, at least in our family. I can still recite large stretches of this from memory, purely from childhood repetition! This is the complete text of Clement Clark Moore’s famous poem, on one sheet. This is a project that’s been knocking around in the back of my head for number of years, and this holiday season I finally did something about it.

Also available on PDF, if you wish to print it for reading by the fire with care.

CC-BY License, although it doesn’t currently say so on the page. Done in Inkscape, naturally.

Happy Mid-Winter Holidays, everyone, however you celebrate them.

Snow. Meh.

Brian Burger — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 23:26:43 +0000

Victoria isn’t supposed to get snow, dammit. We’re supposed to watch it on our TV screens and visit it on skihills. (I say this every time we get snow…)

Do Not Covet Your Ideas

Brian Burger — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 20:43:59 +0000

Flickr user lemasney gets the open source/Creative Commons thing.

(CC-BY-SA Licensed)

Done in Inkscape, naturally.

Long Time, No Blog

Brian Burger — 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 Burger — 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.

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

Brian Burger — 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 Burger — 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.

More Hawai’i

Brian Burger — 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 Burger — 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!