The online home of Appleman1234 / Benjamin Southall

Hi everyone,

Had the cluster meeting yesterday, thanks to those who showed up. We have more hardware now, and a newer gentoo install , all we need now is for piggy to find the scsi drives and the ball will be rolling. Otherwise all that is needed is a few additional spare parts and to setup the SAN box on the Dell Poweredge 2500 rather than the Poweredge 6400 (which must be vampiric or emo, or both and a twilight fandell as it likes to cut me and not find disks. Our magnificent effort was in spite of the lack of internet and the rain . (prorata makes me rage, not to mention the raining on our parade). On the mention of twilight, it is an awesome song by bo(with the accent on top of it, that this wordpress install doesn’t render , because the server is ubuntu and  not gentoo and doesn’t get locales)a (boa, the british band) and nothing more.

Got results back, got high credit for advanced data visualisation, and 43% fail for partial differential equations, because I botched the exam. I really don’t feel like taking supplementary exam for it, so I will probably just try and get an RPL elective instead. At least  I can solve PDEs analytically now in non exam conditions. Looking back at my academic history, the more subjects I do the better I seem to do at them, chances are they are just getting harder towards the end of my degrees however.

Next on the schedule includes the UCSB iCTF which will have me busy most of friday afternoon and saturday morning till lunch, then Laningrad (Lost in Time ) on the 8th, then my 21st on the 24th. Filed bug upstream for intel compositing kde crash, and there is already one filed for the printer-applet crash, but noone seems to have heard of my font issues with firefox and amsn, guess I will be using pidgin for a while longer.

There will probably be another cluster meeting in January, not sure when yet. The Smartdevices V7 has finally made it to dealextreme so I have to decide whether I deserve / desire it as birthday / christmas present or not. I feel like cooking, mostly likely desserts including cupcakes, but I probably won’t get around to it.

Still looking for part time work preferably in IT, which means more cover letters and applications to submit. Neopets guild is awfully quiet which means I probably won’t be revamping / remaking their CMS / Portal until the activity resumes. Still haven’t unpacked my books yet.

Update: piggy / dell poweredge 6400 now boots in 5.5 minutes with memory check w00t !!!

Update 2: firefox / amsn font issues fixed my moving autohinter and subpixel rendering font confs from conf.avail to conf.d in /etc/ directory

Hope everyone is remembering to enjoy themselves in their busyness as Christmas approaches.

Best wishes,

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hi everyone,
Discovered some really nice strangers on omegle.com, it was definitely worth trawling through the trolls and people searching for cybersex …

Since when did conversation or talk mean sex ? Honey , we need to talk ? …, Oh well don’t get me started ranting on oversexualisation of society.

It would be interesting to see what changing the underlying anthropological social structure would be however, but I doubt it would happen outside of communes.

Managed to move to a place with a pool and that is able to get internet, which is nice. Firefox is currently been replaced with Konqueror, as firefox seems to have flash, tab / nspr and uim crashs …… I haven’t gotten around to chrome yet. ivanhoe is fixed and the GIR cluster is relocated.

UPDATE: Firefox and AMSN and various applications (xconfig anyone) seem to have missing text syndrome, I have enabled subpixel hinting (something I hadn’t had to touch since KDE 3) and that brings some of the text back on Firefox but not all. If anyone knows what the fix is , I would appreciate it, as far as I can see freetype, xft, fontconfig are fine, as is mesa and libdrm with KMS on Intel, …..

A side note, the transparency of icons in GTK apps also doesn’t seem to be working. Weird ….

It is quite hot here and I find myself wishing that I was in Canada, Japan or Cyrogenics lab. Interesting things I came across include kysoh’s tux android, buglab’s bug embedded platform and smartdevicesq v7.

I started on backporting the dvb modules to 2.6.11.12 but had nothing but issues, so I may need to progress with plan b of porting all the official thecus interface inside the gentoo chroot and bumping up the kernel to something reasonable.

KMS and fbencoder are having fun (not working), strangely enough they worked with the previous kernel, maybe it is because the theme I am using doesn’t have a 1024×600 config, although I am telling it to use 800×600 one.

Not happy with VTK regarding the audio visualisation project I was working on, but at least I learnt Marsyas and QT, I may continue with Marsyas in attempts to write voice authentication for kdm / gdm.

Saw The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus with people from uni, was quite disappointed in it, it reeked of Faustian cliche and the imaginarium wasn’t surreal/ phantasmorgical enough for my liking, you can show people aesthetics and beauty but unless you mind boggle and captivate them you are doing the entire bringing a person’s imagination to life wrong …

The deja vu of the series of the day’s events and the disparity and lack of cohesion between the conversation and other social dynamics didn’t ameliorate the circumstances, however a trip to candy store may have …

Currently job seeking and resuming project work that was suspended or delayed during the university semester.

Hope everyone is having fun,

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hi everyone,

I am currently surviving. Zombies haven’t eaten me yet. I need to focus on the project I am working on for advanced data visualisation.  Words not said are currently interesting me at the moment. Golden drops of silence, as I attempt to diagnose which SSH no longer seems to work on my NAS (thecus n1200 , ivanhoe).

I currently blame the new firmware. I am hoping to either get it working again or end up installing Gentoo directly on the nas. But I need to focus on partial differential equations study.  I managed to scour various pdf texts on areas of interest, so that I can start reading again.

Raon Digital (The makers of the everun note), seem to have gone out of business, which reaffirms my decision to get an EEEPC instead of a the everun note, in spite of missing out on the dual core 64 bit 7 inch touchscreen goodness.

I have code to write now, but I hope to have recorded an audio or video blog later, so you can look forward to that.

Best wishes

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hi everyone,

Perhaps now I will recall what exactly I wanted to type about. I have been working quite hard on my advanced data visualisation project and have come to the abrupt realisation that spectographs/ spectograms are not effective visualisation methods for audio analysis, as they look cluttered and are visually difficult to measure or discretise. This means that I am going to be investigating various transformations / discretisations I can use on spectograph visualised audio data or alternate methods of visualising audio data.

Currently the software I have been looking into includes Sonic Visualiser, Wavesurfer (which I will probably eventually get working with TCL / TK 8.5 after lots of sed magic to remove the GUI effects that have been made invalid / redudant due to the graphic tile updates), sndPeek (which I haven’t found a use for , other than it being a realtime audio visualiser, still working out whether it takes files as input or only audio devices)  Marsyas ,bpM and Echonest on the analysis front. I am also looking at hooking into libvisual just to provide an aethestic visualisation option.

On the subject of spectral analysis and pretty pictures, on the way into the city, I saw a double rainbow in the sky. What was interesting about the second rainbow has the colour spectrum back to front due to the angle of refraction, another interesting thing is whilst people claim to see triple rainbows and quadruple rainbows the rainbows they see are actually double rainbows that both have a supernumerary rainbow each.

rebecca(my laptop) seems to be update package wise, and I now have scim autostarting along with KDE 4.3, my gentoo overlay seems to be slowly growing to. I really need to spend sometime on the cluster, not to mention my Partial Differential Equations study. Recently I discovered animedb.net, the fact that it has a random function, is something that I find quite impressive. Apparently I am /was/ still am insane for having the debug and doc USE flags enabled globally.

In terms of philosphy I tumbled across the Münchhausen Trilemma, which fits together nicely with various thoughts and gedakens I have been investigating. Another intriguing thought is that is not thinking that causes us to exist but rather believing that we exist or believing that we think we exist to is more likely to implicate existence. This has to do with the philosophical zombie and sentient thought gedanken.

My Japanese is improving to the anime exposure and my French from the movies on SBS, I still have to work on my Mandarin,Russian,Italian, German, Dutch, Swedish, etc. I also have to get comfortable with the style of coding that the programming competitions like ANZAC and ACM expect, particular given that chances are Visual Studio ends up getting used as IDE… (Visual Studio makes me ARGHHH…). I also need to revise my knowledge of dynamic programming and various other programming algorithms for ACM.

IOU seems to running ok, all things considered, and it is possible that the Kali-Ma campaign may be ressurected, so their is plenty of GURPs fun for me to find. I also have to get around to either writing or typing down some poetry/ lyrics or starting to formalise scripts, skits and storyboarding and dialogue for the various manga / anime in my head. I recently reheard the poem the arrival of the Bee Box, I like that poem, the absolute depth and varation of the imagery, meaning and metaphor align to the level of immersion that I have become accustomed to. (Having said this my brain is now think what it would like to be in MMRLEICE (Massively Multiplayer Real Life Emerged in Custard Experience or Extravaganza… take your pick …))

My question for this week, is what makes something taboo ? If something that was taboo from your phenomenological experience was considered a consensus reality or common place in another place you were experiencing what your beliefs and connatations of it change ? Why or Why not ?

Best of luck and best wishes,

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hi everyone,

How is everyone ? I am back at uni and quite busy despite only doing two subjects this semester (Advanced Data Visualisation and Analysis and Partial Differential Equations). rebecca finally has scim with all the languages(I had forgotten to emerge scim-tables), it also has Tagaini Jisho (awesome Japanese dictionary of doom, so I can translate manga, anime, etc, if I want to ) . Either going to start running IOU campaign tommorow or as soon as all 6 players are in the same room and free to play. Laningrad was awesome. Happy Birthday to all those celebrating their 21st then.

I finally got to watch Kino’s Journey and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The questions and perspectives it immersed my mind into left me pensive and curious.  I was going to do a philsophical post a while back but I feel to excited to cohesively post one at present. Got to catch with lots of people either at Laningrad or uni. Also got to watch Seabiscuit with my grandad which was wonderful.

I still have to decide what I am going to do for my Advanced Data Vis project, but chances are it will probably be something with 3D, interaction or combining scientific and information visualisation.  I would put more here, however I can’t currently ascertain what I wish to type as it has gotten lost for the moment.

I do however have a question to ask …

If you only purpose in life was to make a pretty picture what picture would you make and why ?

Best wishes

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hi everyone,

All my assessment for this semester is completed and now I just await my results. Now my eyes / mind / various other squishy appendages turn to all the objectives and things that piled up on my floor or been pushed aside. (Actually my floor is clean, suprise I actually managed to clean my room whilst studying). Meanwhile I have been organising what needs to be achevied during both this gap from study and in the following semester.

Spent a large amount of time looking at networking equipment (switchs, routers, smart switchs,etc), (hacking NG GS608s via eeprom to enable the BCM5398 smart managed switch features, if NG has them turned off), as I have several LANs coming up and various purchasing decisions to contempt and iron out. Ironing makes me feel like eating waffles. I also have to organise some visual / video stuff inorder to work out a movie night I am having with a grandparent.

Was part of an interesting discussion the other day regarding the value of life ,whether the creation of life was just as immoral as the destruction of life and whether creating life, just lead to the newly born experiencing pointless suffering. ##philsophy on freenode isn’t what it used to be, in fact I don’t think it ever was what it used to be. As the semester ends, I have recently been answering various questions about my future and the possibilities. The more I think about it, the more I realise that the answer isn’t something static that is easier to vocalise into comprehensible means.

The steps we have control over are the steps we take, and we can only take one or two or three or possibly seven steps without falling over in an heap / queue / stack / <insert data structure here>. Incandescent featureless footprints taken in the fabric of time, make me wonder whether such blemishs have an impact in the grand scheme of things.

Best wishes and have fun

Benjamin Southall

Hi everyone,

From Fools and deception, to new life, remdemption and the Spring Equinox in the Northern hemisphere anyways, considering that most know this time for its church services and chocolate egg, I guess we haven’t moved that far at all.

Holidays are symbolic and holiday spirit and passion for holiday traditions is a state of mind. I don’t think Maple or wxMaxima (CASes) would be able to solve or derive the meaning of them anymore than most humans do.

It is so easy to get caught up in the hype and FUD (fear, uncertaintity and doubt) and lose sight of our heritage s human beings and the rituals that were so important long ago, that have since been misplaced. It isn’t hard to become engulfed into mass indoctrinism whether its purpose is economic in the supposed crisus or religious in times when a lack of belief ,faith ,hope and trust in ourselves is so common.

I have been almost as busy as the bees that helter skelter from spring flower to spring flower in search of pollen. My tasks however to be a less leisurely pace and are accompanied more with clattering of keystrokes and whirring of  computer fans.

Buses are fun to miss by two minutes. Puzzles are fun to solve, especially if your short on time. All the life and death carefully modelled with non linear ordinary differential equations and then steady states found and typed up into Latex via Lyx.

Balance is important in more ways than one, considering how much I was sneezing on Tuesday. I have rediscovered and given new life to some things that have been dormant a while including the LainOS revival project, several changes to how well rebecca(eeepc) is runnig from a kernel update, the acquisition of an 18plus card and various other things. (UXA causes Blender menus not work render properly, EXA causes title bars of windows to be slightly glitched)

After this LAN I am at ends today,I will probably catch up on sleep and then proceed to working a precarious pace towards the goals I need to reach. For the moment for  the buses missed, I will just have to catch the next ones.

Meanwhile I will just keep swimming, rembering, bideing my time, hoping that everything falls elegantly into place.

What does spring mean to you ? What puts a spring in your step ? Does your life feel redeemed by your existence ?

Best wishes,

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hi everyone,

How are you all ? How was your April’s fool’s day ? I am blargh.

Google’s April Fool creation of CADIE had me filled with joy, and its removal from the internet has left despair in its place. I really want to combine Google’s suggestion of CADIE, the rat molecule brain robot experiments and the antropomorphic fashion robot in Japan, to create a true Hard AI that has minature robotic body that assimilates computing resources based on the other computing equipment / cloud that it can connect to. (See GIR from Invader Zim, or Questionable Content’s  AnthroPC)

I went to a trivia night with my family for my dad’s birthday yesterday, it was interesting to say the least. Once again it proved that the enemy of knowing the correct answers is self doubt and mistrust.

Maths Modelling lab test went ok (aside from me injecting an imaginary steady state where there wasn’t one, and then realising my mistake and correcting it) and I did well on my first advanced calculus assignment.

I have yet to get Supernova tickets (hopefully I will get them tommorow), which ironically just guarantee me a cooler venue in which to work my contribution to a group project, another two assignments and study for an advanced calculus midsemester.

In case anyone is wondering, I will just end up cosplaying as me, because it is easier and I am short on time.  I talked to jabberwacky today (ai chat  bot) and learn’t that it wasn’t an improvement of my conversations with most people , much to my disappointment.

All the knowledge in my head seems to be reassembling and sorting itself into more complex and dynamic patterns, which is causing me to be surprised by my thought associations and the strengh of my memory. Relevance however is another issue.

Emotively I feel like I am in darkness and isolation, but am still edgy from my tolerance for suffering and convolution highly strained.  I guess this feeling will stay for a while, until I spot something euphoria like a shiny non dead butterfly to temporarily cause lost of focus of my social and workload situations.

It rained today it was nice.

Best wishes

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hi everyone,

2 weeks in. Had my great aunt’s 80th birthday party yesterday. It was quite nice. We arrived at little late which was slightly embarrasing, however the venue was simply smashing. It was a cross between woolshed, old english cafe, and a store that actually had cross generation kitzch items. The desserts were awesome, (I enjoyed a large slice of banana cheesecake), despite the fact that they were all out of waffles (They had served waffles for a party of twenty earlier that morning, .  This didn’t stop Jackie’s friend James from getting the last waffle however.)

The conversation ranged from General Monash, to changing times, to what actually constitutes as a waffle, to the deplorable current state of education (after I asked Jackie whether she had made the acquaintance of my current Advanced Calculus lecturer, who also taught teachers at Mt Gravatt Teachers College), I would have liked to talk more about the Great Wars and the current state of politics, however I didn’t get the chance.

After afternoon tea and birthday cake,  we were invited to have a look at James’ house and his wonderful handiwork and antique collection. His house is a roundhouse and it is similar amazing, from the croquet field, that he made himself, to the gardens and the rockeries, and the fabulous antiques that we didn’t see the half of. Including 2 grandfather clocks and a granddaughter clock, limited edition painted plates and various other wonders and suprises.

Having not gotten more of my studies done yesterday and I am currently at Uni fiddling with freeglut for INB381, and the google ads in my gmail inbox pointed me to an awesome embedded linux smart phone (exeda) and a micro pc (fit-pc). My dad (as he works for Telstra) regularly asks me whether I want a new phone, and if anything like the exieda makes it way down under I may just take him up on his offer, as my current phone an Alcatel OT735 has recently decided not to let me take photos. (it powers down when I attempt to take a picture or video).

Anyhow I better finish these OpenGL drawing questions and the team conflict resolution strategy reflection despite the confliction resolution model being focused on being incomplete and inadqueate and not mapping to actual reasonable courses of action in employment. On Friday we had the QUT Tabletop first Games Meetup and AGM, it was rather fun, I learnt a new canadian card game called Crazy, we played Hangman, and few others played Australian Monopoly and Magic the Gathering.  Shame that Rory didn’t show up with Chess Boards, I was looking forward to a game.

I hope you all are having as much as I am, and getting as much work done if not more

Best wishes

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hi everyone,

One week till my Birthday and I don’t feel any different or any older.
I have time now, but seek part time employment that can assist in reimbursing my dwindling bank account.

I have been busying myself with LANINGRAD (which could have been better), coding PHP, studying for next year, helping various people with their Linux related issues, including the reverse engineering of a Linux BSP for the Colibri PXA27X board and various other ends.

My foot is still slightly sore, rebecca (the eeepc1000h) replaces ulrica which is still being fixed. My NAS / ivanhoe is at Altech and I waiting for other people to pick up there act in an attempt to get it back before my birthday.

I passed my maths subjects and got a 7 for the Advanced Network Management (Unix Admin) and 6 for Project management.

My thoughts have ranged from skits, to referencial proofs of illogicality, to partially isomorphic mappings between machine learning and social interaction.

Enjoy the summer / winter solstice ….

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234