The bricks next to the bath are recent. The ones with the pink sheet
were almost the first batch. I think they are getting better.

I've finished my first 5 tonnes. This time I got a bigger truck.

The model American puts in 1600 hours to get 12500 km: about 8 km per hour.

Energy and Equity

I always wondered about the economics of buying a car and paying for petrol. This book is from a while ago and rather gendered, but I like the fellow and his funny turn of phrase. And boy do I love ball bearings. Apparently the human walking is already one of the most efficient animals - less efficient than rats but. With a bicycle we are by far the most efficient movers. Except for possibly dingos....

Bicycles are not only thermodynamically efficient, they are also cheap. With his much lower salary, the Chinese acquires his durable bicycle in a fraction of the working hours an American devotes to the purchase of his obsolescent car. The cost of public utilities needed to facilitate bicycle traffic versus the price of an infrastructure tailored to high speeds is proportionately even less than the price differential of the vehicles used in the two systems. In the bicycle system, engineered roads are necessary only at certain points of dense traffic, and people who live far from the surfaced path are not thereby automatically isolated as they would be if they depended on cars or trains. The bicycle has extended man’s radius without shunting him onto roads he cannot walk. Where he cannot ride his bike, he can usually push it.

However, this particular time was different. I was approaching the cattle grid a few kilometers from home, when I noticed a funny clicking noise behind me. It was kind of like some was stuck in my wheel. I slowed down a little and had a little peek but it didn't seem to be a bike related click so I rode on. The clicking continued and sounded like it was getting closer - coming from a little way behind me. I had my lights off to see the stars. They were lovely and beautiful both this night. But it meant that I couldn't see behind me. It sounded like some sort of creature, but creatures can't ride as fast as a bike. Especially when the rider is a bit nervous and trying to escape funny clicking noises behind them by riding quick. But I peeked over my shoulder a bit and after a few peeks decided there was definitely something shadowy there. I turned on my bike light, unclipped it and swung it around. Two glowing eyes leapt back and sideways avoiding the beam (which is pretty bright for sure). I felt a bit bad. I thought whatever it was would give up. Especially since things with eyes like that can't run as fast as a bike and definitely not for very long.

I beamed light at the eyes again and decided that it was a dingo. It was that nice dusty brown they are. And had that great running gait that they have. And even in pursuit of a cyclist, it still had that lovely languid manner dingoes always seem to have. It was a dingo for sure. It didn't give up. It seemed that it could run as fast as a bike. And for quite long. It was a couple of kilometres already. I started to get a bit worried that I would get tired before it did. I wasn't sure if it was just working at keeping up with me or if it was waiting for me to get tired or fall off. I rode faster. Actually I rode as fast as I could on my big old bike. It wasn't fast enough. This little fellow stayed right behind me no matter what speed I went. I started to get the feeling that any moment it fancied it could lope up and bite my leg. Perhaps not right off. I don't think dingoes bite legs properly off. But it could perhaps bite me such that it hurt a lot and I'd fall off my bike from the cussing and probably be deftly eaten by the dingo its dingo pals.

I turned the corner into my road thinking the dingo might decide he was in the wrong hood and give up. It didn't. I thought about turning around and riding towards it. To like call its bluff and stuff. It seemed a bit mean, since I wasn't even sure if the dingo was wanting to eat me or just have a nice run together. So I didn't do that. I imagined riding into my place and shouting out to everyone that there was a dingo after me. I'd ride around in circles and people would come out and wave their hands and shout at it.

As it happened, the dingo left me at the gap and I didn't see it again. I was fairly glad for that.

This is Comic Sans MS. Based on comic book writing the font remains a huge fan favorite. It is used on a surprisingly large number of Web sites of all types. Comic Sans MS was also designed and hinted by Vincent Connare.

Microsoft ClearType Tuner (their emphasis)

{% block fos_user_resetting_widget %}
  {{ form_row(form.new.first, {'label':'Password'}) }}
  {{ form_row(form.new.second, {'label':'Confirm Password'}) }}
  {{ form_rest(form) }}
{% endblock %}

More info: Symfony2 Twig Form Theming

For s3cmd version 1.0.1 I changed this on line 684 in the s3cmd file:

# sr = os.stat_result(os.lstat(full_name))
sr = os.stat_result(os.stat(full_name))

Swapping Python's os.lstat() (which doesn't follow symlinks) for os.stat() (which does follow them) means that it will compare the "correct" file sizes. This method is only used to calculate file size and modification time, so it should be OK. So far I haven't noticed other side effects, but we will see. My hope is that --follow-symlinks was added later, and they didn't think to change this line.

Note: I'm guessing this change will break (or at least complicate) using s3cmd when you don't want to follow symlinks.

Over the weekend we had a few pretty fun adventures. Pauline was with us, and because she is pretty old some of the blokes decided we needed to take the 4wd all the way up the valley so that Pauline could see the end and have a swim there. During the course of a few hours we dragged the Hilux up the creek across newly constructed roadways. It almost rolled and got stuck a few times but it kept going. Most of this time Pauline was either walking along side the truck, or waiting for it up ahead. It's about a one hour walk, or in this case a two hour drive. Pauline was very good humoured about it all, and every now and then there would be a short section she could be inside the truck for. Then she'd have to get out again.

The blokes sure had a good time and Pauline and everyone else got some good exercise. By the time we got to the waterholes we were all well ready for a swim. Except for Pauline who I don't think had a swim.

My house is going to have a loft bed. It was going to have a low roof under the loft. But then the architect, who is terribly practical, raised it a bit to be a full height roof. Which means that now I can fit a loft bed under my loft bedroom. And possibly even another loft bed inside my loft bedroom. I am for sure tempted to try.

Or possibly even better - two of those bunks with double beds on the bottom and single beds on top. I love those things. It would mean I could have five other guests sleep over in my little house. It would almost be like other countries.

In system/expressionengine/libraries/Session.php ExpressionEngine includes a check for the IP address when it gets the session data. Commenting out the line for the IP address and turning off IP address checks in the configuration seems to have fixed it for me.

public function fetch_session_data()
{
    // Look for session.  Match the user's IP address and browser for added security.
    $this->EE->db->select('member_id, admin_sess, last_activity')
        ->where('session_id', (string) $this->sdata['session_id'])
        //->where('ip_address', $this->sdata['ip_address'])
        ->where('user_agent', $this->sdata['user_agent']);
...

I've started turning off my other monitoring software (especially Monitis, which I was actually paying for).

There is still the other redback living next to my toaster. She is much smaller, and maybe not old enough to go out into the world yet.

For Christmas Eve dinner I could John and myself dinner and drank expensive spirits as I might have done with my mum in Sydney. However, by the time I took dinner over to John he was asleep so I cam back and ate by myself and listened to Antony. As one does when you're all alone on Christmas Eve.

Then I lugged my swag down to the creek and slept under the best stars in my (extremely flaky) memory.

I'm going to go make some more mud bricks while it's cool. And then have mushrooms and coffee. And then play the Xbox for the first time. And then go to my friend's mansion for Christmas cavorting.

Apparently, the whole house will need about 3000 bricks to make. About 30 tonnes of dirt. It's a pretty tiny house, so it seems like an awful lot of dirt.

Perhaps the house will take the whole year to build and not just three months. But that is OK. I don't have much else to do next year.

Posted by Nutloaf

Everyone needs to do their bit

So I did those sums and then bought some nut trees in Guatemala. I have a suspicion it will be one of those things where western hippy organisations come in and bulldoze people's houses to plant offset trees. If it is then I am sorry Guatemala.

I also resolved this morning to stop joking about my carbon emissions. It's not actually any funnier than lots of other shit I really don't think is funny.

$builder->add('amount', 'money', array(
  'label' => 'Default Price', 
  'invalid_message' => 'Price must be a number'
));

I couldn't find that documented anywhere, but it works.

function site_uc_product_add_to_cart( $variables ) {
  $sku = $variables['form']['node']['#value']->model;
  $stocklevel = uc_stock_level($sku);
  if (is_numeric($stocklevel)) {
    // Stock tracking is active
    if ($stocklevel <= 0) {
      return '<div class="add-to-cart out-of-stock"><button disabled>' . t('Sold') . '</button></div>';
    }
    else {
      return theme_uc_product_add_to_cart($variables);
    }
  }
  else {
    // Stock tracking is not being used for this product, just show the add to cart button as normal
    return theme_uc_product_add_to_cart($variables);
  }
}

Fortunately my friend is quite savvy when it comes to wood and other practical similars. The day turned out well well and was well fun. The cupboard went in after a good full day of drilling and screwing and shoving at bows in bits of wood to get them straight or rectangles. It weighs a lot. Possibly much of that is screws. We went through quite a few screw heads. But we finished the construction bit and it looks pretty sweet. It stands up straight, even according to the level. And the shelves are perpendicular to gravity, which is pleasing and a bit unexpected.

Today I ache a little from shoving at twisty bits of the wood. I should go to the gym or something one day.

But I started to get experimental. I started to get hippy. I thought I could do it without tinned chickpeas. I thought I could buy them dried and in bulk and cook them myself to use less packaging.

So I did. I soaked them overnight. Then I cooked them slowly in a pressure cooker for about 5 hours. Then I made hommous in the blender just as I had been. Simple, but usually quite yummy.

The hommous was horrible. Tasted like dust. Soggy dust. And just mushy. I thought maybe sitting it in the fridge for a day or too would make it better. It made it worse. I gave the rest to the chickens.

Now I am no longer happy when I think of hommous. I feel nervous and unhappy. I hope this hommous malaise doesn't stay long.

So if your network domain is footboot.net then blogs will be at site1.footboot.net etc.

If your network domain is wp.footboot.net then blogs will be at site1.wp.footboot.net

Fortunately it isn't hard to rename blog domains after they are setup. So you can rename your site1.wp.footboot.net to site1.footboot.net. Everything seems to work all happy, until you try to login. WordPress is willing to show you a blog at any domain I think, but cookies are more tricky. The cookie domain for every blog is determined from the network domain. So if your network domain is wp.footboot.net you cannot do any cookie stuff on site1.footboot.net. However, it seems if you set the COOKIE_DOMAIN define in your wp-config.php to the top level domain you can keep the network domain as a subdomain. So far that is working, and I haven't found any other consequences.

I was importing from old blogs and I wanted to rename the blog domain **after** the import so that WordPress would get the media from the old one. When you rename the blog domain all that media will break, but you can rename them with a plugin.

So it's all running sweet now. Much better than the old software (but still surprisingly crap). ]]> http://fatvegan.com/2011/12/02/enabling-wordpress-multisite/feed/ 0 http://fatvegan.com/2011/12/01/hoisted/ http://fatvegan.com/2011/12/01/hoisted/#comments Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:14:05 +0000 Ryan http://fatvegan.com/?p=5077 So the other day (quite a while ago) I was just minding my own business cutting grass and killing insects and marsupials with the mower. Then out of no where comes this hills hoist and sucker punches me right in the side if the head. Floored me to the fresh cut grass. I got a not cool head cut which I'm hoping will turn into a cool head scar. In the mean time I walk around slightly woozy and with a bit of a not cool throbbing down the side of my head. I'm not sure what the moral is here.

The other day John found a native mouse and brought it over so the cats wouldn't eat it. It was a whole other kind of cute. Much more puffsome and round. Darker brown. Quiet. I like them. ]]> http://fatvegan.com/2011/11/27/mice/feed/ 4