Fat Vegan

Server Downtimes

Ryan — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:56:24 +0000

Sad times for the server. As always, whenever I get out of SSH range the smurf.footboot.net server decides to crash itself. This time it did it for about two solid weeks. 70% uptime for the last month. Oh dear. I haven't figured out why it was so unhappy. Perhaps it just missed me and was looking for attention. I feel like our relationship is a little up and down. Sometimes I do wonder if we'd both be happier without each other. But I doubt we'll separate. We've been two long together now I think.

I'll do a bit of an apt-get upgrade. Might make things better. Could make things worse. We will see. I'm going away for another two weeks on Friday. Poor old smurf.

PPPP

Ryan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:02:34 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Public-private Pole Partnerships. Apparently the management fees for
this single pole partnership deal were in the millions.

Baby Bird

Ryan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:00:45 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

I found him on the sidewalk. I can't figure out how he got there.

Notice to Tourists

Ryan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:31:17 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Nice Accidental Whoosh

Ryan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:30:53 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Cider & Ramen

Ryan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:21:32 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Cider and ramen at the great pub really make quite happy. There is
even a moist towel. So good.

Instant Feast!

Ryan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:32:21 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Writing an Adjournment Letter

Ryan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:45:40 +0000

I had to write an adjournment letter to Newcastle Local Court today. It took a bit of research to work out what I was meant to do, so I thought I'd post the resources I used.

How to Adjourn a Trial Date
Locations of Local Courts (NSW)
SA Government Legal FAQs
Information about CNI numbers
Writing a Letter to a Magistrate - although as it turns out I'm writing a letter to the Court registrar not the magistrate

I won't bother attaching the letter, because it's pretty lame.

Couscoussier

Ryan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:51:24 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

What a brilliant idea.

Slow Rails Tests & fixtures :all

Ryan — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:00:05 +0000

With my latest Rails project I'm using a new version of Rails than I'd been used (my last job was over a year ago). It seemed to me that the tests had got substantially slower. Problem was fixtures :all in the test_helper.rb. I changed that and things got much quicker.

DEPRECATION WARNING: ActiveRecord::Errors.default_error_messages & attachment_fu

Ryan — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 04:17:33 +0000

The latest version of attachment_fu will give you this error. You need to replace a line in this file:

vendor/plugins/attachment_fu/lib/technoweenie/attachment_fu.rb:386

+ errors.add attr_name, I18n.translate('activerecord.errors.messages.inclusion') unless enum.nil? || enum.include?(send(attr_name))    
- errors.add attr_name, ActiveRecord::Errors.default_error_messages[:inclusion] unless enum.nil? || enum.include?(send(attr_name))

War & Production

Ryan — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:38:55 +0000

These are some numbers from Afghanistan.

US military expenditure for the war against (estimated): US $66 billion
GDP (Purchasing Power Parity): US $22.27 billion

So about three quarters of all money spent in that country is used for smashing and killing stuff. One quarter is used for everything else.

Extremely Mild Brutality

Ryan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:37:58 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

I was mildly brutalised by the police and all I got was this lame
bruise. I was dragged away from the entrance of federal parliament
yesterday. The police were surprisingly gentle.

Three Barreled Utopias

Ryan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:55:53 +0000

I get grumpy at all the three barreled strategies for utopia floating about nowadays. Usually you will a full stop between each word for extra effect. My least favourite so far is Think. Change. Do. for which we have the manicured self-satisfaction of UTS to thank. Now Friends of the Earth International, who I quite like, has mobilize, resist, transform. The words and ideas on their own are great and good. Chain them together with punctuation like that and you reduce the messy, uncertain process of social change to some gimmicky inevitability. Yuck.

Smug. Media graduate. Fuckers.

Peru Farewell

Ryan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:29:35 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

This photo has been on my mum's fridge for a while. It's the only copy so I thought I should scan it before it gets too old.

My last day at the school was pretty sad. I still miss those kids a lot.

Biggest and Truest

Ryan — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:38:55 +0000

The cover article on one of the Sunday paper magazines today was Final Justice: Inside one of Australia's biggest true murder cases. It sort of implies there might be a bunch of bigger murder cases out there, but mostly fictional ones. I don't know what their criteria for "big" is, but I would have thought that when it came to murder cases being true kind of trumps being fictional in the bigness stakes. For things like marriage, it might be different and maybe they think of a big TV murder the way they think of a big TV marriage. You never know what is going on the heads of the Sunday paper editors.

Skinny Tiger, Fatty Dragon

Ryan — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:09:56 +0000

We watched Skinny Tiger, Fatty Dragon for Halloween last night, because it had nothing to do with Halloween. And also because it's Hong Kong kungfu comedy which is the best genre of film there is. It was pretty awesome. Great fighting and actually hilarious. Massively sexist and inappropriate - a lot of jokes were about police sexually harassing women. Somehow the bits in between were still really good. Yet another one of the Hong Kong films that makes you wonder how Hollywood can never get it together. My only theory so far relates to OH&S laws.

More Holidays

Ryan — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:45:51 +0000

Well, seven days after coming back from leave I'm off again. I couldn't really cope. This time it's for three weeks and I don't know what is going to happen at the end. I'm perhaps looking for a job that needs a web developing disabilities support worker with an economics degree.

Over Cleaning

Ryan — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:01:36 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

When enough cleaning really isn't...

Already in the freezer

Ryan — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:44:00 +0000

Me: What did the two of you do this afternoon?
Them: He shouted me a chocolate cornetto in his cubby house. Which I ate. Then he shouted me a caramel chip cornetto and I ate that too. Then he shouted me a baked raspberry cheesecake. I ate them all, one after the other. When I finished one, I ate the next one.
Me: Goodness me. What a feast! How does he afford all this? Where does he get his money?
Them: [thinking] ...it's no problem. He has the money. The money is no problem for him.
Me: Did he inherit money from his parents?
Them: [doubtful] Yes... no... the cornetto is in the freezer. It's already in the freezer see. No problem. We don't need any money.

How to take the wheels off an Otto/wheelie bin

Ryan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:44:23 +0000

One or both of the wheels will have a spoke that looks different to the others. It will be a tube built into the spoke and the tube contains a lug with a spring to keep it in place. The lug holds the wheel onto the axle. You can create a hole in the plastic cylinder so you can manually slide the lug away from the axle. The hole needs to be a reasonable size to be able to move the lug far enough but you don't want to destroy the cylinder. Depending on the state of the mechanism you may just be able to put the wheel back by hitting the centre with a hammer. But the spring mechanism will probably need to be in tact for the lug to stay in place.

Keep your shirt on

Ryan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:27:45 +0000

Them: Ryan, when can we go get a new teapot?
Me: Right now?
Them: [shouting and waving arms in the air] YAY! HURRAY! HURRAY! HURRAY!
Me: Wooooo! Yes! New teapot!
Them: OK OK. Keep your shirt on.

Spinning Underpants

Ryan — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:42:18 +0000

One of my housemates has learnt to spin underpants around on their finger like a stripper. It is quite a neat skill, but it makes encouraging them to get dressed in the morning a much funnier experience than is probably helpful.

New Assistants

Ryan — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:40:48 +0000

Before I came to my current community, the image I'd always had in my head was of pleasant, peaceful assistants gliding around an immaculate house exuding a very unconfronting sort of spiritual glow. I knew I certainly didn't fit the bill, so I was reluctant to join up. Luckily, the reality wasn't nearly so intimidating. All my human dysfunction and general incompetence actually made me feel right at home. It was wonderful.

One might expect the story to end there, with our houses coasting along happily and marginally. However, yesterday a new kind of assistant arrived at my house. Unlike the rest of us, she seems to represent the miracle assistant that I had thought this community was filled with. Kind and patient. Interesting and interested. Conversational but certainly not dominating. Experienced. Prayerful. And despite all that, so friendly that no one even feels intimidated.

Underpants

Ryan — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:00:16 +0000

A few months ago I had about eight pairs of underpants. Now I maybe have two. It's a problem easily solved I suppose but it does make me wonder about myself. And feel a little embarrassed for the the trail of immodest carnage it appears I must have left behind me in that time.

Theologically Unassailable

Ryan — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:09:39 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Chin scratch

Ryan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:10:21 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Carbon Storage Insurance

Ryan — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:22:49 +0000

It seems that the insurance market for carbon storage is finally starting to get up and running. Obviously, it only insures companies for the low danger of the first 50 years, and not the rather more difficult to insure period of eternity. Luckily for the corporations the life expectancy of a Fortune 500 corporation is only 40-50 years, so they don't need insurance for eternity.

Stupid stupid stupid.

Flare Pockets

Ryan — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:14:36 +0000

I had thought the flare pockets on the side of my Special Forces Assault Pack were totally useless. Not owning any flares it seemed an unnecessary feature. But being a vegan, I'm prone to Vitamin B12 deficiency and it turns out the flare pockets are almost perfectly suited to carrying my B12 tablets.

Don’t Shoot Me

Ryan — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:07:35 +0000

Them: [standing at my bedroom door] I like you Ryan.
Me: I like you too.
Them: Please don't shoot me Ryan.
Me: No. I won't shoot you.
Them: [unsure] Um... because... um... I want to be alive to see my friend.
Me: Yes. It's OK. I won't shoot you.
Them: [long silence] Thankyou Ryan. See you. [walks down the stairs]