Wordcamp Melbourne 2011

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Chris Samuel

This coming February (26th-27th) there’s going to be “WordCamp Melbourne 2011” held at North Melbourne Town Hall.

If youâ€™re into WordPress â€“ the free and open source personal publishing platform â€“ then youâ€™ll love WordCamp â€“ a casual, locally-organised conference catering both to budding bloggers and experienced developers alike. The first such event to be held in the city, WordCamp Melbourne 2011 features a range of guest speakers including Glenn Todd and Bronson Quick.

I know that my friend Rich Boakes has been enthusiastic about them in the UK so I’m hoping I might be able to make it to this one!

(Hat tip to Kathy Reid for pointing this out on Twitter)

Sunset Over Melbourne

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Chris Samuel

Managed to snap this shot just after exiting the city loop tunnel heading towards Richmond Station. I reckon it’s not bad for a cameraphone shot through a moving train window.. 😉

An Evening at Cardinia

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Chris Samuel

Donna and I have found that you can go to Cardinia Reservoir fairly late (currently last entry is 8pm and you have to be out by 9pm) and have a picnic there and watch the kangaroos wandering around. Very relaxing!

Melbourne CBD Photo Walk, New Years Day, 2011

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Chris Samuel

On the 1st January Donna and I went and walked around Melbourne’s CBD to take photos, here’s some of the best from that trip:

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-01-16

Posted on January 16, 2011 by Chris Samuel

"God is Funny" (entertaining youtube video) http://bit.ly/hKx6ac (via @donna_williams) #atheism #
So a #Palin aide says cross-hairs were never meant to evoke violence. What on earth else are gun sights going to evoke! #
Waiting for the #TrainReplacementBusService #
Sigh, why doesn't fio clear up its temporary files on exit ? 🙁 #
.@alecmuffett assuming 1 storey is 3m, then that's a 16 storey house.. he must have been rich! 😉 #
Main problem with scientific software – it's written by scientists (especially build systems) #hpc /cc @mage0r @myrddian #
Worrying for #lca2011 – potential for repeat of Brisbane 1974 floods – http://bit.ly/hMtYsT /cc @linuxconfau #
Palin's editors delete critical comments from #FB page in mins, but leave 1 saying OK to kill child http://bit.ly/dFR2ry #
Good job it's GPL'd! – RT @insideHPC Just in: Inside Track: Oracle has Kicked #Lustre to the Curb http://bit.ly/foPp0T #
Hydrologist on @ABCNews Radio said not expecting levels to exceed 1974 ones – and 1890's had much higher levels (over 8m) #
.@ABCNews Radio had headlines immediately after that saying Brisbane expecting "unprecedented" floods bigger than '74.. #
Rocking out to The Levellers, TMTCH, John Lee Hooker, Motorhead and Jello Biafra with DOA #amarok #
Wow, it's so long since I've listened to "Bomber" by Motorhead – and still a good one! #
OK folks, enough already with the SEO expert bar jokes, what are you, SEO experts? experienced? learned? educated? tutored? #
Dear #Thunderbird – I get heaps of email as it is, please don't duplicate them when filtering to IMAP folders as well! #
#Queensland #Flood Relief Appeal (run by #QLD government) – http://bit.ly/h7ePv4 – #qldfloods (please RT) #
Latest news from @AARNET (who seem to have fallen off Twitter) about their #QLDfloods status http://bit.ly/fWz9eK #
Luckily found doc on how my Libretto writes suspend state at fixed point – end of 8.4GB disk – but new one is 20GB 🙂 #
Watching grub2 compile, again.. #
Just learned that Michael Jackson, author of "Complete Guide To Single Malt Scotch", died in 2007 🙁 http://bit.ly/fLxE5E #
Progress resurrecting my Toshiba Libretto 70CT: grub2 now boots a kernel, and the kernel doesn't panic, but… #
…my stripped down kernel is obviously too stripped down as it doesn't find the hard disk before trying to mount / 🙂 #
Much progress in the saga of getting #Debian Squeeze #Linux (6) on to my Toshiba Libretto 70CT! #
1st kernel booted but couldn't find HD, 2nd kernel mysteriously converted itself to i686 and wouldn't boot in i586. 🙂 #
3rd kernel boots and finds HD but missed option to mount largefile filesystem r/w, 4th kernel boots fine and I can login! #
Next step is working networking as 4th kernel has PCMCIA enabled but I forgot to enable drivers for PCMCIA net cards. 🙂 #
Starting to sound like the building a castle sketch from Monty Python's Holy Grail… 😉 #
""Mum was just trapped under there and we took some pictures but she's all right now," she said." – http://bit.ly/eMqSpM #
Must not remember that I cannot cut and paste phone numbers into my phone – need more coffee #ENOCAFFEINE #
Who's going to @LinuxUsersVic Penguin Picnic tomorrow (Saturday 15th) @ Docklands ? http://bit.ly/gISjup #linux #melbourne #
Spray on liquid glass – you wouldn't want to get that mixed up with anything… http://bit.ly/edbBzH #
Uploading my photos from the #Melbourne #Flickr group photowalk on 9th January – http://bit.ly/hQGdp3 #
Who's going to @LinuxUsersVic Penguin Picnic today @ Docklands ? http://bit.ly/gISjup #linux #melbourne #
One day I want to copy someone's Tweet word for word and see if they notice. #
Hit 7,000 tweets, obviously talk too much 🙂 (or retweet too much) #
Short video of shadow of the moon on the earth during the 2005 total #eclipse taken from the #ISS http://bit.ly/hx5TK4 #
Uploading photos from New Years Day photowalk in Melbourne's CBD with @donna_williams to #Flickr – http://bit.ly/i3EWwR #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-01-09

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Chris Samuel

(Tim Robinson's) Babbage Difference Engine No.1 made in #Meccano by Graham Jost http://bit.ly/grNnVa #steamtoypunk 🙂 #
So Twitter's "Who to follow" suggested @UKHPCGUY which would make sense, except he's not tweeted since September 2009… #
Aha, it appears that there is a #LibreOffice PPA available for #Ubuntu http://bit.ly/en85vQ #Openoffice #
One problem with the #Libreoffice PPA – it breaks the dependency that kubuntu-desktop has on openoffice 🙁 #
Shopping with Donna to restock after Xmas, fell victim to half price leg of ham, got home to find it doesn't fit in fridge #
Fortunately have dairy free butter chicken sauce – am considering Zen Butter Chicken with no butter and no chicken.. 😉 #
Went a-wandering with Donna today, at Gembrook cemetery saw a blue ant – really a flightless wasp – http://bit.ly/ecmtfP #
Got to say that blue "ants" are quite breathtaking, very shiny blue-green colour – just glad I wasn't their prey! #
Also a bugger to photograph, constantly on move + as I thought it was a bull ant I was trying to keep out of its way 🙂 #
Oh noes – end of holiday – work in the morning! Good job it's a fun job! 🙂 #VLSCI #
Underhanded C Contest – clean code that passes inspection but does something evil – http://bit.ly/g9L2nx – appears defunct #
Blue #ant (really the flightless flower #wasp Diamma Bicolor) at Gembrook Cemetery http://flic.kr/p/97nkdg #
RIP Gerry Rafferty of "Baker Street" fame.. #
#Linux #Kernel 2.6.37 has been tagged in Linus's git repo! Huzzah! #
Versioning of images and non-destructive editing lands in #Digikam #039;s #KDE repo! http://bit.ly/e0GHwG #linux #photography #
First beta of #digikam 2.0.0 has appeared, including face recognition, nondestructive editing, etc: http://bit.ly/hpoP6m #
Some level headed first thoughts on #nvidia #039;s "Project Denver" by Joe Landman (@sijoe) – http://bit.ly/fkzbQE #hpc #
BMJ says #Wakefield #autism study contains 'clear evidence of falsification' + 'an elaborate fraud' http://bit.ly/g9IYWw #
How many deliberately unvaccinated children died due to the measles as a result of Wakefields bogus autism study ? 🙁 #
Santa Monica Pier Sunset – #HDR photo taken using the #Nokia "HDR Capture" app on my #N900 http://flic.kr/p/8WHLQ2 #
RT @lachlanhurst Crash at corner of Plenty and Childs rd, Mill Park. Avoid. /cc @774melbourne #
Aide-mÃ©moire: example of using ((warn_unused_result)) to catch unhandled errors in #mariadb #mysql http://bit.ly/es1UnY #
Wow, very impressive! RT @apod Sunrise, Moonrise: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110106.html #eclipse #
Javascript generated audio in Firefox4, cool or scary ? (or both.. 🙂 ) http://bit.ly/hTgYoj #ff4 via @astronomyblog #
Tomorrow (Friday) is forecast to be a day of "very high" fire danger in the central #CFA region – http://bit.ly/fcN0Qa #
Merge window for 2.6.38 has opened – and I've got a (minor) patch to the perf userland stuff in.. 😉 #
Real problem with the north-south pipeline is it's just not long enough; I'm sure QLD would be happy to send water to VIC! #
Anyone know if the @Panasas v4 Linux filesystem client can talk to #Panasas v3.5 shelves #HPC #
Broadcom PR about open sourcing wifi drivers says "garnered applause", RedHat person said they caused "eye cancer" 🙂 #
aptitude purge `dpkg -l | grep openoffice | awk '{print $2}'` && aptitude install libreoffice #libreoffice #FTW 🙂 #
Nice one Glenn! RT @SciMelb New blog post: Directors appointed for $67 million Super Science projects http://ow.ly/1aLx8Z #
#Flickr – "Gâ€™day Chris Bloke! Now you know how to greet people in Australian!" – I think that's taking it a bit far 🙂 #
Founder of @Wotif made record $1.6M donation to Australian @Greens http://bit.ly/h7S3tf – via @abcnews #
Spot the cool change in Melbourne 🙂 http://www.baywx.com/melbtemp.html (replacement for old Uni of Melb temp graph) #
#Flickr says: "O HAI Chris Bloke! Now you know how to greet people in Lolspeak!" Er.. 😉 #
Well my home machine is now #openoffice org free – running #LibreOffice 3.3RC2 from the Ubuntu PPA 🙂 #
.@marsroverdriver Awesome! My favourite was "So you control the tides! Neil deGrasse Tyson is god! Kneel before Neil!" 🙂 #
So the BoM said there was likely to be storms this afternoon/evening – nothing so far, not even a shower of rain! 🙁 #
Let's see if I can debootstrap Debian Squeeze onto this donated laptop disk (thanks @zootman!) and resurrect my Libretto #
fingers crossed – "debootstrap –arch i386 squeeze /media/LIBRETTO http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/debian/" #
Install went really well, but found I ran into Debian bug #588293 with grub2 – need grub-legacy 🙁 http://bit.ly/hW0nR0 #
Oh dear, it appears that 32MB is not enough to boot the 2.6.35 kernel that Debian Squeeze has 🙁 Poor old Libretto 🙁 #
At least I know that grub-legacy works where grub2 doesn't – sadly kernel panics whilst trying to decompress initramfs #
Downloading the 250 odd photos from todays #Flickr #Melbourne Group photo walk in Richmond #

Abandoned House – Llanelly

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Chris Samuel

Photos from an abandoned house in Llanelly (Victoria, not Llanelli in Wales!) taken in 2007.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-01-02

Posted on January 2, 2011 by Chris Samuel

#Moab 5.4.2 really doesn't like dealing with 40,000 queued jobs, have now limited users to 4,000 jobs each in Torque #hpc #
Bah, except max_user_queuable doesn't seem to be honoured in #Torque 2.4.8! 🙁 #
Went to see #TheKingsSpeech last night, awesome film, top marks to Colin Firth + Geoffrey Rush! #
Anyone know how to disable #PulseAudio in KDE 4.6.0 RC1 on Kubuntu 10.10 ? I need my audio to work again.. 🙁 #
Oh great plan coalition, scrap #Myki just when it seems to work. Then have to pay for a different #Metcard replacement. #
Indigenous rock art from Arnhem Land shows c1620's SE Asian fishing boat http://bit.ly/ijyiBK #archaeology (from July) #
A cracking live version of "World Turned Upside Down" by the #Oysterband – http://bit.ly/hsg8PU #
Dream double bill for me in #Melbourne would be #Oysterband and #NewModelArmy – both awesome live.. #
June Tabor and #Oysterband cover Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" – fab! http://bit.ly/f3dJiy #
Interesting research finds possible immune link between "feeling down" with flu and #depression – http://bit.ly/hQWYgX #
Unfollowing @linux_at_ibm, a repetitive stream of recycled marketing messages does not a good Twitter stream make.. 🙁 #
On the 4th day of Xmas my #HPC brought to me – another 3 failed disks – that's not good.. #
Yay, #IBM engineer on site tomorrow morning to replace the 3 dead drives in our DCS9900 (rebadged #DDN , fingers crossed! #
Funny how #Intelsat regained control of their #zombiesat – waited for the battery to run down which forced a reboot. 🙂 #
#IBM swapped out 2 of the 3 dead drives this morning in our DCS9900 (rebaded #DDN , 3rd is missing in transit.. #
Hmf, did an @internode plan change from SOHO-ADSL-50 to SOHO-REACH-60 last night and ADSL speed has halved! 🙁 #
REACH change speed problem reported to @internode, will see what they can do about it.. #
Off to @melbournemuseum today! #
On the 6th day of Xmas my #HPC brought to me, 2 failed battery packs in the Uni's APC UPS.. sigh! #
So #NYE is a day of total fire ban – wonder if that affects the fireworks ? #
Fab afternoon at @melbournemuseum exploring Bunjilaka, Koori Voices, Mulana exhibition and the indigenous garden. #
Great dinner at Burwood Teppanyaki tonight. Really nice food, very friendly service + no prob with casein free for Donna #
Intro to High-Performance Scientiï¬c Computing – #HPC textbook, free PDF from Lulu http://bit.ly/gWTmo0 – via @insidehpc #
Friday will be 40C and winds of 60km/h around Melbourne, according to the BoM, so a severe bushfire danger.. 🙁 #NYE #
Looks like it's already cracked 40C in Melbourne CBD today, just under 35C here in the hills.. #
Amused to see tourists feeding skittish parrots at Grants Picnic Ground, oblivious to the eagles circling overhead! #
Keiran demonstrating Newtons Laws of Motion http://twitpic.com/3lij1m #Friends #NYE #
Blwyddyn newydd dda pawb! Happy new year all! Goodnight… #nye #
"Ouch! Artist bolts camera to skull for year-long show" (BBC) http://bbc.in/dQh9ug @jonoxer eat your heart out! #
Currently uploading #photos a photowalk around #Canterbury with @donna_williams http://bit.ly/e3Zsxs #
Flight – lucky shot of pigeon in flight at Canterbury railway station http://flic.kr/p/96jNg5 #
Chimney – Reminds me of a Buddhist Lama's headdress! http://flic.kr/p/96gJh8 #
Accepted invitation to PC for #VTDC11 #Virtualization Technologies in Distributed Computing – http://bit.ly/eurL65 #hpc #
I think this will be my 3rd or 4th time on the #VTDC program committee.. #
Just posted a set of photos from 2007 from an abandoned property in Llanelly, Victoria http://bit.ly/dH8f3l #flickr #
Japanese Empress end of year Waka poems about #Hayabusa and #vuvuzelas http://bit.ly/gFok4A – way to go! via @Astro_Soichi #

Happy New Year

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Chris Samuel

I hope everyone has a happy, fun and safe new year for all!

2010 was a good year for me, I changed jobs back in January leaving the great people of VPAC for a new challenge, working with a new group of great people to bring up a new HPC centre for life sciences from scratch based at the University of Melbourne (but open to all life scientists across the state). Since then we’ve brought up a 1088 core SGI Altix XE cluster (Intel Nehalem based), a 640 core IBM iDataplex cluster (again Nehalem) and an IBM Blue Gene/P with 8192 cores. This is just stage 1, the big systems are due to arrive in 2012! It’s been great fun and great to just be able to concentrate on running the HPC systems and not have to worry about anything else.

On a personal level life has also been great, my wonderful wife and I celebrated 10 years of marriage this December and look forward to many more! We’ve just had our longest amount of time off together since 2008 thanks to the university shutting down between Xmas and New Year and have spent it quietly pottering around the house and local area. Very relaxing!

Happy Babbagemas Everyone!

Posted on December 26, 2010 by Chris Samuel

Turns out that the day after Newtonmas is Babbagemas, the annual celebration of Charles Babbage’s birthday on 26th December 1791. As well as having something to do with computers he also had a good understanding of your common or garden politician and their scientific understanding:

On two occasions I have been asked, â€“ “Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?” In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

It is traditional (starting from now) to celebrate Babbagemas by blogging on the day.

The Musings of Chris Samuel

Computers, science, archaeology and other random burblings

Category Archives: Writing