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flexibeastThis is my first post in a few weeks. There's been a lot happening.
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naked_wrat and i visited my parents - who live in rural Victoria - for a weekend, which was nice and relaxing. i managed to find some time to write some Ruby in an attempt to add some functionality to a particular FOSS Ruby app i'd like to use, but which doesn't currently include the functionality in question. The app in question is actually an Internet app, and connectivity have a chance to test the code i'd written until i got back home, whereupon (unsurprisingly) it didn't work. That was weeks ago, and since that time, i've not really had a chance to debug the code in question.
To begin with, i've spent a fair amount of time installing / trying to install the copy of the Mandriva 2008.0 DVD that we bought from Linux System Labs on the various boxen i maintain. i won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say that the fact that Mandriva no longer creates floppy boot images for network-based installs caused lots of difficulties, due to the specific hardware i have to work with. In the end, i managed to get a working M2008.0 install on two machines out of four. After many shenanigans, i installed it on one of the other two machines, but it would freeze up somewhere between the bootsplash screen and the kernel being loaded - something i've never seen happen before, and which no-one on #mandriva seemed to be able to help with. (One of the problems with having 10+ years' experience with Linux is that there aren't as many people who may be able to help me on problems i get stuck on as i'd like.) And this meant there was no point trying to install M2008.0 on the final machine, because (again for reasons i won't go into here) both these machines need to run the same software. It also meant i had to reinstall M2007.0 on the problematic machine, which was a relatively straightforward process after all of the above.
i then spent some time getting wireless set up on one of the M2008.0 machines. This was less due to any inherent problems with Mandriva than due to my lack of familiarity with wireless networking on Linux. Despite a native driver being available for the wireless card on the machine in question, it didn't work, and i ended up using ndiswrapper, which has resulted in a flawless wireless experience.
So much of the last few weeks has been taken up by sysadmin stuff, which has annoyed and frustrated me, because one of the things i like about using Linux rather than Windows is that i don't have to spend so much time involved in sysadmin stuff and can thus spend more time doing things like, you know, actually being a user. :-P
More recently, some people very close to me have been suffering as a result of mail being opened, looted, and spread up and down the street; malicious phone calls at various times of day; and eggings of their home. We have strong suspicions as to who is behind all this, but no proof. The malicious phone calls have involved fatphobic abuse, which doesn't surprise me given the mass media's obsession with the so-called "obesity epidemic" (tobacco and alcohol also have significant impacts on Australia's health system, but i don't hear the media talking about "the smoking epidemic" or "the alcohol epidemic"). We have talked at length about how to handle all this, and have various plans in place. Hopefully things will get resolved in our favour in the near future.
Then, last night,naked_wrat broke up with immmortal1.
On a small, more positive, note, there seems to have been a bit more interest in the Pleasure Activism Australia Web site of late. i'd actually like to see more people making use of the 'Events' section of the Web site to promote sexuality-related events - it's free advertising in a world where advertising often ain't that cheap. :-)
Finally, i've been looking into the whether there's been much / any research into the sexuality of a certain minority group (of which i'm a proud member). i've asked some well-known sex educators in the US, and they're not aware of any, but have promised to keep an ear to the ground. The next step is for me to look through a few sexuality-related journals, to see if i can find anything (although i suspect i won't - we're not generally regarded as a particularly interesting group of people, quite the opposite in fact). Once i've done that, i'll be in a better position to not only specify which group i'm talking about (though i imagine regular reader of this journal will have their suspicions :-) ), but also to describe the research i'd like to do in this area. If you're intrigued, stay tuned. :-)
naked_wrat and i visited my parents - who live in rural Victoria - for a weekend, which was nice and relaxing. i managed to find some time to write some Ruby in an attempt to add some functionality to a particular FOSS Ruby app i'd like to use, but which doesn't currently include the functionality in question. The app in question is actually an Internet app, and connectivity have a chance to test the code i'd written until i got back home, whereupon (unsurprisingly) it didn't work. That was weeks ago, and since that time, i've not really had a chance to debug the code in question.To begin with, i've spent a fair amount of time installing / trying to install the copy of the Mandriva 2008.0 DVD that we bought from Linux System Labs on the various boxen i maintain. i won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say that the fact that Mandriva no longer creates floppy boot images for network-based installs caused lots of difficulties, due to the specific hardware i have to work with. In the end, i managed to get a working M2008.0 install on two machines out of four. After many shenanigans, i installed it on one of the other two machines, but it would freeze up somewhere between the bootsplash screen and the kernel being loaded - something i've never seen happen before, and which no-one on #mandriva seemed to be able to help with. (One of the problems with having 10+ years' experience with Linux is that there aren't as many people who may be able to help me on problems i get stuck on as i'd like.) And this meant there was no point trying to install M2008.0 on the final machine, because (again for reasons i won't go into here) both these machines need to run the same software. It also meant i had to reinstall M2007.0 on the problematic machine, which was a relatively straightforward process after all of the above.
i then spent some time getting wireless set up on one of the M2008.0 machines. This was less due to any inherent problems with Mandriva than due to my lack of familiarity with wireless networking on Linux. Despite a native driver being available for the wireless card on the machine in question, it didn't work, and i ended up using ndiswrapper, which has resulted in a flawless wireless experience.
So much of the last few weeks has been taken up by sysadmin stuff, which has annoyed and frustrated me, because one of the things i like about using Linux rather than Windows is that i don't have to spend so much time involved in sysadmin stuff and can thus spend more time doing things like, you know, actually being a user. :-P
More recently, some people very close to me have been suffering as a result of mail being opened, looted, and spread up and down the street; malicious phone calls at various times of day; and eggings of their home. We have strong suspicions as to who is behind all this, but no proof. The malicious phone calls have involved fatphobic abuse, which doesn't surprise me given the mass media's obsession with the so-called "obesity epidemic" (tobacco and alcohol also have significant impacts on Australia's health system, but i don't hear the media talking about "the smoking epidemic" or "the alcohol epidemic"). We have talked at length about how to handle all this, and have various plans in place. Hopefully things will get resolved in our favour in the near future.
Then, last night,
naked_wrat broke up with immmortal1.On a small, more positive, note, there seems to have been a bit more interest in the Pleasure Activism Australia Web site of late. i'd actually like to see more people making use of the 'Events' section of the Web site to promote sexuality-related events - it's free advertising in a world where advertising often ain't that cheap. :-)
Finally, i've been looking into the whether there's been much / any research into the sexuality of a certain minority group (of which i'm a proud member). i've asked some well-known sex educators in the US, and they're not aware of any, but have promised to keep an ear to the ground. The next step is for me to look through a few sexuality-related journals, to see if i can find anything (although i suspect i won't - we're not generally regarded as a particularly interesting group of people, quite the opposite in fact). Once i've done that, i'll be in a better position to not only specify which group i'm talking about (though i imagine regular reader of this journal will have their suspicions :-) ), but also to describe the research i'd like to do in this area. If you're intrigued, stay tuned. :-)
