The Musings of Chris Samuel

The ever fantastic “How to be a Retronaut” website has posted a brilliant collection of colour images of modern Leningrad which have been matched to, and partially overlaid with, black & white photos of the Siege of Leningrad during World War 2.

The collection has been put together by Segei Larenkov.

• 419 scammers now sending pictures of alleged loot and (badly) photoshopped passport ID page – inspired by Mossad? #
• Unfortunately the 419 scammers don't seem to know about EXIF information pics from 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2010.. #
• Happy St Davids Day – Dydd Dewi Sant Hapus – Cymru am byth! #cymru #wales #
• Apparently locusts aren't common in Melbourne, advised by friend to send my photos to DPI to confirm whether/not they are #
• http://twitpic.com/160ig7 – Could this be a locust at Cardinia Reservoir ? #
• Installing xCAT via Yum – wow that's easy! #hpc #
• Kudos to @mobicity for publicly sorting out my friends #Nokia #N900 USB port warranty repair http://bit.ly/bWTgjy #
• [hotel door hacking+defence with #HHGTTG RT @alecmuffett must-see for anyone who stays in a hotel: http://bit.ly/aVDmuB #
• Yay for #xcat new #VLSCI #SGI cluster has first compute node remotely installed - now need to refine the kickstart! #
• Also first parts of the #VLSCI #IBM cluster arrived today, but they'll need to wait for the room to be built.. #
• What sort of sick people target hospitals with suicide bombers ? That's not religion, it's inhumane madness.. #
• [LWN subscribers article - please support LWN!] RT@lwnnet: [$] Apple's patent attack http://lwn.net/Articles/376793/rss #
• Yay, #Kubuntu has packages of #KDE 4.4.1 in the KDE PPA – downloading almost 600MB of updates now #
• Link for announcement of #Kubuntu #KDE 4.4.1 packages – http://bit.ly/bAByOp #linux #ubuntu #
• Mr Bean does Avatar RT LEIGHSALES http://twitpic.com/16fuyz – This should give you a giggle to start your day. #
• Finally got serial-over-lan working with #xCat and #SGI XE340's, hadn't set the port to 1 in the nodehm table, d'oh! #
• Very very true – RT @newscientist: Why scientists must be the new climate sceptics http://bit.ly/dqiDyn #
• Looks like the BoM's Laverton rain RADAR is back up and running! http://bit.ly/dowdNR #melbourne #
• http://twitpic.com/160ig7 – Answer from DPI – no it's a grasshopper, but… #
• http://twitpic.com/16jikh – according to DPI this is an adult plague #locust at Cardinia Reservoir near #Melbourne #
• Like to be able to get #Google #Analytics stats for your plugin on #Wordpress org ? Vote for this: http://bit.ly/cOzXho #
• [awesome engineering!] RT @astronomyblog OK GO video which reminds me of the Great Egg Race http://bit.ly/9eByz3 #
• Surived epic hailstorm today – was driving back from Cardinia Reservoir and had to pull over until the worst had passed #
• Got home to find Donna had been defending the house from flooding and helped unblock the road to let it drain properly #
• On/off/undervoltage power for most of arvo – fortunately only a few dents in the car and a cracked window at home #
• Thanks @maddoghall for the blog comment on DECnet orphaned in #Linux sic transit gloria networking! http://bit.ly/aApDqM #
• Great Clark and Dawe sketch on Tony Abbott's Excellent Outback Adventure – http://bit.ly/bKb7Kda #politics #comedy #
• ABC reported hailstones of 10cm diameter in Ferntree Gully – fortunately the ones that hit our car were only golf ball size! #
• BoM 256km #rain radar shows storms heading south towards #Melbourne http://bit.ly/9Dtn3p – could be interesting! :-/ #
• Grr, why is #SVN asking me for my GNOME keyring passphrase? I use #KDE not GNOME, I Have no GNOME passphrase! #fail #
• Looks like the current line of thunderstorms has missed Mount Dandenong, but #Melbourne might not be so lucky.. #
• Looks like the storms have died down a bit looking at the BoM #rain radar – was almost black when it was over Shepparton! #
• Rumours of a hail cannon being used somewhere around Mt Dandenong, can hear regular distant bangs.. #

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• final sync of my #VPAC email before my account bites the dust: almost 25,000 emails in my sent folder over the 6.5 years #
• Love the Calvin and Hobbes tribute in this #XKCD http://xkcd.com/702/ #
• SpaceRef have photos of #SpaceX #Falcon9 #rocket upright on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral http://bit.ly/aAMVML #space #
• Carrying a #gun in Phily, PA means you are over 4X as likely to be shot and killed than someone unarmed http://bit.ly/9YW8P0 #
• hmm, @mobicity won't honour warranty on friends #N900 that has the #Nokia acknowledged broken USB port of death #
• Guardian: "When using open source makes you an enemy of the state" – about IIPA targeting Indonesia http://bit.ly/aW0HqB #
• misread a @metrotrains tweet saying "Minor Delays – Sydenham line", thought they'd built a Sysadmin line for a sec #
• Great fun – online solar system simulator http://bit.ly/bKWvxD – via @plutokiller (who obviously wants target practice) #
• at Cardinia Reservoir, no roos but there are #locusts #
• Problems with the BoM #Melbourne forecast ? Currently saying (for today, Saturday) 'Max ##' http://bit.ly/9g8pYB #
• #Tsunami warning for #Australia (QLD, TAS, NSW) after Chile #earthquake http://bit.ly/aFy2gl #
• Joint Australian #Tsunami Warning Centre – Warnings for QLD, NSW, Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island – http://bit.ly/aP5c2m #
• Joint Australian #Tsunami Warning Centre: Warnings for QLD, NSW, VIC, TAS, Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island bit.ly/aP5c2m #
• #Tsunami warning for #Victoria from Lakes Entrance to Gabo Island: from now for the next few hours http://bit.ly/bUc86I #
• JATWC: #Tsunami warnings for QLD, NSW, VIC, TAS, Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island http://bit.ly/aP5c2m (fixed link) #
• JATWC appears to have dropped #Tsunami warning for QLD, still in effect for NSW, VIC, TAS, Norfolk + Lord Howe Island #
• JATCW has reinstated #Tsunami warning for QLD! #
• Just updated #SpamAssassin 3.3.0 rules with sa-update, looks like a whole bunch of new tests went in! #spam #
• ABC reports that 5 people killed by #tsunami on the Robinson Crusoe islands http://bit.ly/cYdoG3 #
• Looks like a lot of readjustment going on with the Nazca/South American plate boundary, about 70 large aftershocks so far #
• Just realised that 2.6.33 now supports my Leadtek Winfast DVB-T card I've had since I bought this desktop 2 years ago! #
• Dear #lazyweb anyone know how to add a library (gomp) to the ones that dpkg-buildpackage uses for ffmpeg ? #ubuntu #debian #
• Solved my ffmpeg compilation, proved to myself that GCC 4.4.1 -ftree-parallelize-loops=4 doesn't help with encoding.. #
• Wow, another 20 odd magnitude 5+ aftershocks on the Nazca/S.A. plate boundary in the last 12 hours.. #

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• "No bug is too foolish to check for. Given enough code, developers will write almost anything you can think of.' http://bit.ly/diOOI9 #
• Oh the irony! Pauline Hanson is about to become an immigrant – she's moving to the UK – http://bit.ly/9J9FFh #
• #Maemo and #Moblin to merge. #Maemo loosing #Debian base, moving to RPM base http://bit.ly/92smw8 via @lwnnet #
• #Maemo + #Moblin = #Meego – what a bad new name! #
• #Wordpress 2.9.2 is out – fixes a disclosure hole where registered (non-admin) users could see posts in the trash. #
• #VLSCI announces its' #SGI Altix XE #HPC cluster http://bit.ly/bIaMBN #
• don't really like the new @abcnews website layout, no longer any quick way to see Victorian stories.. #
• More info on the #Maemo 6 /#Meego change on maemo.org http://bit.ly/aPcpI2 "deb still for Harmattan, rpm for MeeGo" #
• So that might mean that #Maemo 6 / #Meego from #Nokia might use .deb, *and* RPM (as permitted by the LSB) #
• Interesting – #Meego will be "entirely open source", can be seen as an alternative to #Mer – http://bit.ly/d5xwhq #maemo #
• .@nokconv @petermaemo – could #Maemo 5 apps run on #Meego ? Will #Meego be available for the #N900 ? Deb and/or RPM ? #
• #N900 update on the way ? RT @nokconv @arun8gb A: We've already pushed two software updates, and are pushing another today! #
• An earlier answer to the query about #Meego on #N900 : RT @nokconf @pirlok A: It's too early to say. #NokiaMWC #maemo #
• Kudos to @PeterMaemo and @nokconv on taking #maemo #meego questions – still confused about diff between #harmattan + #meego #
• New #Maemo 5 update out for #N900 – 3.2010.02-8.002 #
• #N900 #maemo update is minor one to prep for larger one later Feb with #qt 4.6 http://bit.ly/b8Ujf6 http://bit.ly/ar2Oa2 #
• Oh so true for many restaurant websites http://bit.ly/bzanJO (via @fooishbar) #
• Two stunning images from #NASA #WISE mission: #Comet Siding Spring http://bit.ly/b5OQO9 and Andromeda http://bit.ly/cCZUss #
• Spooky – the full size JPG of the #NASA #WISE image of Andromeda is 6666 x 6666 – 'tis the picture of the beast! #
• The JMRI case (Jacobsen v. Katzer) has been settled – FOSS wins – http://bit.ly/aKkQlJ #copyright #legal #opensource #gpl #
• At Doncaster playhouse for tonights 'Footsteps of a Nobody' by @donna_williams – starts 8pm #autism #
• Yay – LensBaby (I have their original #LensBaby to use on our #Nikon #D100) are on Twitter as @SeeInANewWay ! #
• Just to correct myself, it's not the original #LensBaby I've got, it's the #LensBaby 2.0 #
• Good blog by Sylvia Pfeiffer on issues that would face #Google should they open up the #VP8 codec http://bit.ly/cCeVXq #

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• One of worlds oldest languages, Bo, of Andaman Islands, has lost its last native speaker http://bit.ly/axs9E8 #history #sad #
• It appears the eSATA DVD-RW that came with my Dell Latitude Z600 can trash DVD's when doing a "-dummy" test with wodim! #
• Garth Davis, director of @donna_williams #film "Nobody Nowhere" directed 2010 Coke #Superbowl advert http://bit.ly/bMsfXT #
• Conroy's filter will not make the internet safer – http://bit.ly/bMYANP #censorship #australia #nocleanfeed #
• It appears Australian shadow finance minister Barnaby Joyce doesn't understand finance.. http://bit.ly/cdWwQA #politics #
• #Myki boss sacked – Metlink boss appointed instead – http://bit.ly/aicWLN #melbourne #publictransport #
• Uni of Melbourne + #IBM announcement at 10am Thursday – http://bit.ly/bhNvrK #
• Announcements of #VLSCI #IBM #lifescience #HPC partnership http://bit.ly/9LMoSF http://bit.ly/dxIBDq http://bit.ly/anwTCR #
• Amazing thunderstorm over central #Melbourne at the moment, lots of thunder! #
• RT @elmonte09: Help! Counting twitter atheists by #tag If atheist, RT this whole message #atheist #
• It's depressing just how wrong some of the press reports on IT stories can be.. #
• It appears we've finally solved where to put the first Intel Nehalem cluster for #VLSCI due to arrive on Wednesday! #
• Nice graph by @mikal of popularity of various #SMTP #email servers since 1996 based on various surveys http://bit.ly/9fncUU #
• 15th July 1993 "I'm busy trying to re-install Linux on my PC after todays diskswapping" – tracked down some old email #
• In August 1993 the University of Wales, Aberystwyth #usenet news spool was a whopping 400MB. #
• So Barbie is now a "computer engineer" http://bit.ly/6wUJfr – can't figure out if that's good or bad (via @markbate) #
• Chip-n-PIN protocol broken, fraudsters can use cards without knowing PIN, paper from Cambridge (PDF) http://bit.ly/bEhYL8 #
• That Chip-n-PIN security vulnerability via @timfaas and @benjaminblack – paper by S Murdoch, S Drimer, R Anderson, M Bond #
• Fascinating website – How to be a Retronaut – http://bit.ly/cX5geJ – historical #photos both real and imagined! #history #
• Here's a #photo from 1844 by Henry Fox Talbot of the building of Nelsons Column in #London – http://bit.ly/crg2ho #history #
• Film of London in 1903 – wouldn't mind betting aggregate people-miles-per-hour is faster then than now http://bit.ly/9CK06m #
• More digging through old email – first web server I set up (as a test) was in January 1994 to demo to Uni folks #
• Working with @donna_williams on the complete overhaul of Auties.org – now based on Wordpress to make life easier #

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This is a great shame, though probably not that surprising these days, but the UK Joint Academic Network (JANET) is going to pull its Usenet News service on the 31st July 2010. Basically I suspect the ever declining SNR has put people off, and these days everyone knows the web and the closest they get to knowing what Usenet is (or maybe was) Google Groups. JANET says:

There are now few active registered News Feed users and News Read users and the current infrastructure is nearing its end of life. JANET(UK) have therefore decided that it is no longer economically viable to run the service, especially in the current financial climate. We therefore will cease to offer the service when the existing contract expires on July 31st 2010.

Especially sad for me as I cut part of my first real sysadmin job at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, was working on the Usenet news system that had been set up originally by Alec Muffett and I was for quite a while the maintainer of the UK.telecom newsgroup FAQ and the alt.config guidelines.

Update: I’ve been digging through some old email – here’s one from 4th August 1993 giving an idea of what we had to struggle with:

OK, I deleted all binaries under alt.binaries, all of junk and all of control. That, coupled with the AEM_TIDY got us about 27 meg back. I then ran a doexpire, whch took a long while but we’re now up to about 53 Meg free, or about 85% of the 400 Meg partition.

Yup, the entire university news spool at that time was a whopping great 400MB. We were using nntplink with CNews for the time (this was before we knew about INN).

• Dangerous discovery – I can get onto the Uni wireless system from outside the #coffee shop on Bouverie Street.. #
• Court orders council to play King Cnut + protect expensive beachfront homes from coastal erosion http://bit.ly/buiv1W #
• I wonder if #Google know about googlee.com.au and their wildcard A record ? #
• Just made a Twitter list for #CFA alerts and safe announcements for region 13 (Dandenong Ranges) http://bit.ly/bW7WDt #
• Oops, try this link for my #CFA Region 13 (Dandenong Ranges, Yarra Valley) incidents/safe twitter list – http://bit.ly/adZNcu #
• As of 11:41pm last night (Tuesday) it appears the #CFA have fixed the duplicate GUID problem in their RSS feed! #
• Have a Nokia #N900 and you find wifi stops working until reboot? You're hitting this bug: http://bit.ly/aCg8pD #
• Nokia #N900 wifi bug fixed in forthcoming firmware release, meantime workaround from the xterm is: killall -9 eapd #
• Court finds in favour of common sense in #iinet case – movie industry vows legislation to avoid it http://bit.ly/9ovXjZ #
• BBC: Vegetative state patients can respond to questions http://bit.ly/dmO0Bz (some, not all, patients) #science #medicine #
• Today is the first anniversary of #BlackSaturday when 173 people died in Victoria's #bushfires. http://bit.ly/9vrjYI #
• Spent last few hours battling OpenWRT upgrade, mostly caused by a power board that had (unknown to me at the time) failed #
• Read these comments from #iinet judgement on behaviour and misrepresentations of AFACT http://bit.ly/9AWicm via @sourcefrog #
• Yay – caught another email harvester that was grabbing emails for spammers via my Project #Honeypot setup! #
• Oh brilliant – suddenly I can no longer authenticate to the Universities email system – I hate #microsoft #
• ..and now it works again! #
• yay – Exchange has lost the ability to authenticate me again #fail #
• ..and it's working again, again.. #
• SMH: "Feel sorry for Kiely, but pity more his female colleagues" – http://bit.ly/c089Ki #
• Amusing – H.264 encoder in Final Cut Pro is apparently not licensed for commercial use – so much for the "Pro".. #patents #
• Today is the first anniversary of #BlackSaturday when 173 people died in Victoria's #bushfires. http://bit.ly/9vrjYI #

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• My registered #myki doesn't show up on my account but if I try and register the card it says it's already registered! #
• 'The filter shouldn’t be a thing, it should be a person. They’re called “responsible”. They’re called parents.' http://bit.ly/7oLDUx #
• Aha, solved my own issue, it appears the #Myki site doesn't work with Konqueror, just #Firefox – another website #fail #
• Dear #lazyweb, what's best way to upload pics to #Twitpic from #N900? Web site works but that uploads full size image. #
• Oh great, now spammers have started putting their rubbish into the display-name of the From: line of emails #
• "SecurityFocus reports that #IE6 has 396 known unpatched vulnerabilities, #IE7 has 15, and #IE8 has 32" http://bit.ly/87tGBI #
• #Google #wardriving whilst streetviewing, plus #wifi mac address to location API + Python code – http://bit.ly/5LumgQ #
• #davmail 3.6.3 out with GUI setting to force ActiveSync updates so now thunderbird->exchange->#N900 works! davmail.sf.net #
• Got call back from #Myki about problem with website but wanted my home address or Myki pin to verify ID – closed case with neither #
• "Scientists 'losing climate fight'" – good points about why skeptics have won despite the facts – http://bit.ly/86E9U3 #
• Amazing photo of fine structure in solar corona during eclipse – http://bit.ly/4nmsIw – via @astronomyblog @finestructure #
• According to their blog the backdoor in e107 CMS systems affects all version 0.7 releases – http://bit.ly/4nS9on #security #
• WhisperingWulf: Design and build of a silent personal cluster – Jon Tegner on ClusterMonkey – http://bit.ly/8aJ396 #hpc #
• #SpamAssassin 3.3.0 released – almost 18 months since 3.2.5 came out! http://bit.ly/9TqBpX #spam #perl #
• oops – "I thought 'that's an f'ing shark!' I kicked at it and in the process I fell off the board." http://bit.ly/9Nbo7b #
• If #KVM says virtualisation disabled in BIOS of your #Dell #Latitude, and it is enabled, then check this http://bit.ly/9LdCmb #
• Looks like #myki interferes with Melbourne Uni staff cards, have to remove it from my wallet to get into the building now! #
• Lovely cartoon on Conroy's Great Firewall of #Australia http://bit.ly/agVHal #censorship #nocleanfeed #
• #Australia breaking more high temp records than low temp for last 50 years, and difference is increasing http://bit.ly/adjznc #
• #Oracle Exadata2 DB server based on #Sun hardware runs #Linux not #Solaris, according to spec sheet http://bit.ly/cjh25T #
• Grin – @ear1grey's 2005 April Fool on the #Apple #iPad is now on front page of Google image search http://toast.tw/100jar #
• This is the 2005 April Fool #Apple #iPad blog by @ear1grey http://bit.ly/9fPlFp #
• RT @BreakingNews Study linking vaccines to #autism 'dishonest,' 'irresponsible,' British Medical Council rules http://bit.ly/94a32V #
• Can't find any mention of #HPC or #Lustre on any of the Oracle presentations about takeover of Sun http://bit.ly/c1oACI #
• Sigh – the old #Sun webpage just goes straight to the #Oracle website now.. #
• Februrary 24th – Vindaloo Against Violence – http://bit.ly/cyBhs0 – via @abcnews #melbourne #anti-racism #food #
• Very good spoof of a generic TV news item by Charlie Brooker http://bit.ly/cnZkQK (via @makenosound @sabman) #humour #
• bah! "This video contains content from #bbc, who has decided to block it in your country." http://bit.ly/ctdrEl #fail #
• Next @linuxusersvic meet – "Using django to make web apps" + "Simulating the formation of stars" http://bit.ly/bnitI4 #linux #
• Know a good place in #Melbourne to get USB -> microUSB cable without paying the extortionate rate of mobile phone shops? #
• ShopBot looks like it has best info on micro USB cables – http://bit.ly/csDziJ – cheapest is $15, much better than $50! #
• Just learned that Bill McLaren, the voice of #rugby, died on 19th January http://bit.ly/clDHCu http://bit.ly/9wPtM9 #
• Today's random fact, both Gone With The Wind and Star Wars sold twice as many tickets as #Avatar – http://bit.ly/9gsQJ6 #
• Excellent riposte to the #XKCD #Mars Rover strip – http://is.gd/7n9SG – via @marsroverdriver + @barbylon #
• On thinking (and reading) further on Amazon vs McMillan – have no desire to buy something I cannot own, so no ebooks for me #
• Another nail in the coffin of #HPC at #Sun/#Oracle ? Rich Brueckner is looking for work http://bit.ly/c5nTc3 #
• H.264 covered by more than 1,000 #patents held by 25 patent owners – plus any undeclared – http://bit.ly/91hzKR #
• #CFA emergency #bushfire warning for Paton Road, Emerald "expected to impact between the hours of 05:00 PM – 07:00 PM" #
• #CFA emergency #bushfire warning for Stewart Road, Emerald "expected to impact anytime within the next two hours" south #
• Fingers crossed for @markbate who's had to evacuate in Emerald #
• Yay, @markbate got out OK to a friends place. #
• CFA has downgraded Emerald #bushfire down from "emergency" to "watch and act" #
• Yay! Rain at last! Hopefully this will get to the fire at Emerald too. #
• Amazing orange sky out there… #

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Today is the public holiday commonly called Australia Day but really it’s only a good day for those of us who arrived since last 1787, for those who came before it’s been a bit crap. OK, a lot crap. So today instead of participating in the usual ritual of barbie and beer Donna and I went up to the Belgrave Survival Day event, celebrating the fact that we still have people from the oldest continual culture in the world around!

A nice day, we were a bit late in getting there so we missed the earlier talks and dances but we did get to hear some good indigenous bands play and had a wander around to look at the displays and talk to people. If you want to know a little more about why these things are important have a browse of the ANTAR website.

Along with folks like the Samba project I’ve joined the Great Australian Internet Blackout, so the first time (and only the first time) you visit the site you’ll get the notice about the protest. Here’s why the proposed mandatory filtering is a bad idea from the Great Australian Internet Blackout website:

• It won’t protect children: The filter isn’t a “cyber safety” measure to stop kids seeing inappropriate content such as R and X rated websites. It is not even designed to prevent the spread of illegal material where it is most often found (chat rooms, peer-to-peer file sharing).
• We will all pay for this ineffective solution: Under this policy, ISPs will be forced to charge more for consumer and business broadband. Several hundred thousand dollars has already been spent to test the filter – without considering high-speed services such as the National Broadband Network!
• A dangerous precedent: We stand to join a small club of countries which impose centralised Internet censorship such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The secret blacklist may be limited to “Refused Classification” content for now, but what might a future Australian Government choose to block?

If you’re using Wordpress with a theme that supports widgets then participating is as easy as adding a text widget (or using one you already have) and add the single line of HTML to activate the blackout.

To paraphrase Kryten from Red Dwarf, it has just two minor flaws. One, it won’t work, and two, it won’t work. Now I realise that, technically speaking, that’s only one flaw but I thought it was such a big one it was worth mentioning twice.