Gmail Doubles Storage

G is for growth

Storage is an important part of email, but that doesn't mean you should have to worry about it. To celebrate our one-year birthday, we're giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2 gigabytes by giving you more space as we are able.

Two gigabytes? Are they mad?

History suggests they are not. So how can they give this amount of storage for free? Let's start by considering what it must be costing them.

Most users are going to take a long time to build up that much archived mail, for example I just looked at my thunderbird mail repository containing my saved mail going back over a decade, it's only 200 megabytes, and Google would be mad if they aren't compressing their mail storage. Naively zipping up my mail reduces it to 60 Megs. Compression varies and images in popular formats like jpegs and mpegs don't compress well, so not many people are going to get compression like that, but the 2 gigabytes is somewhere between 2 gigabytes and 600 megabytes; probably closer to the 600 megabytes end. Most users won't use anything like their 2 gigabytes limit for a few years, so let's say that the average use is going to be around 1 gigabytes or 400 megabytes once compressed.

At current disk prices that works out at about 50c worth of disk per user. OK, they need backup media, and computers, and will have some other hardware costs, so lets say that doubles the requirements, bringing it to $1 per user. With their adsense technology it isn't going to take them very long to pay that dollar off from paid clicks. Obviously there's running costs as well, electricity, maintenance on their servers, etc, but no more than for any other web hosting business, and I'll bet they buy internet bandwidth at bargain basement prices.

Quote of the day

'Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.'
--Sam Brown

Google Gulp

Google are carrying on two of their favourite traditions

1. April fools announcements of new services
2. Doing it a day late

The joke

Google Gulp, a new fruity drink with a DNA reader that indexes your genetic code and modifies the drink to change your hormonal state to produce optimal effect.

This reminds me of the other DNA's description of the Sirius Cybernetics NutriMatic Drink Dispenser

The way it works is very interesting. When the 'Drink' button is pressed it makes an instant, but highly-detailed, examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject's metabolism, and then sends tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centres of the subject's brain, to see what is likely to be well received. However, no one knows quite why it does this, because it then invariably delivers a cup-full of liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.

Make sure you read the FAQ, it's hilarious, but oh-so-true.

A day late

Yes, it's already the second of April here. Google are obviously keeping US time, which for a service based in the US would normally be reasonable, except that I'm reading this page on google.co.NZ, a site that they run which masquerades as a New Zealand site and customises its view for New Zealand readers, so it would be expected that they used the New Zealand time zone for their jokes.

I remember from childhood that jokes were OK until Noon on the first of April, after that the trickster was the April Fool, not the victim. So April fool, Google!

On the other hand, Google have built a massive business on not being first to market, but on coming into an existing markets and doing it so much better that they sweep the former incumbent aside. I remember the old search engines from before Google. You do a search and their databases were so confused by keyword stuffers that you had to look through 10 or 11 pages before you found what you were looking at, as time went on this got worse and you had to look for more pages, tell it to exclude certain terms, etc. With Google, if what you are looking for isn't on the second page, you've asked the wrong question.

Another good example is adsense. I used to see ads as a browser, but they were never terribly relevant to me, and as a small publisher it was difficult for me to get relevant ads on my site. With Adsense I see ads relevant to the page I'm looking at, and customised for the fact that I'm browsing from New Zealand. As a publisher I can place ads on my sites and have Google's software select the ones that are most likely to be relevant to my content.

So let's just be charitable and assume that Google have spotted the business advantages of being in the April Fools industry and are simply coming into the market with a better version. Nah!

Last word, a Gmail reference?

From the Google FAQ:

I mean, isn't this whole invite-only thing kind of bogus?

Dude, it's like you've never even heard of viral marketing.

Yahoo 360 blog

I'm having a play with the new Yahoo! 360 beta. Thanks to Wannabe Lawyer for the invite. Looking at the layout, I feel it is best suited to be a personal diary style blog. I already have one of those, right here, and I'm not interested in cutting and pasting from here to there, so I've decided to use it as a place for recording the more interesting of Google Alerts I'm already receiving. My initial feeling is that the editor and environment are a little harder for me to use than the blogspot one, but then I'm used to the blogspot environment, so I'll withhold judgement on that until I'm more skilled.

Yahoo! And Creative Commons

Y!'s done it again, they've released a beta web search for material available under a Creative Commons (CC) licence.

What's that?

It's applying permission to copy and change to written works basically the same idea as open source applies to computer software. Just as open source means that the authors of some software have chosen to allow others to freely share and use that software, while reserving other rights, a CC licence on writing means that others can take that writing and use it.

So it's free?

Yes and no. It's free as in beer, but it's not necessarily free as in speech. The original author retains all rights except those they choose to give away. With open source software, it's usually free for anyone to use for any purpose typically with the only restrictions being that they must distribute the source code of any modified version they distribute and they must distribute the modified version under the same licence. With CC, it's very common for the original author to place more restrictive conditions, such as no modifications or no commercial use. Strangely enough giving attribution to the original author is an optional, not a required, part of the CC licence. This last point doesn't make any sense to me, as I believe if you're quoting someone you should give them credit.

Why am I interested in this?

I have a little hobby web site with information about the kiore. While I can write general information for the site, there's a lot of scientific papers out there that I'd love to be able to extract large quotes from. Unfortunately standard copyright doesn't permit this, so I need to either request permission or paraphrase. Paraphrasing is fine for general text, but if I'm trying to quote a scientific paper and paraphrase I'm likely to miss a key word and give wrong information.
Of course it's not automatic, and unless the original site uses CC I'd still have to seek permission.

So why don't I use a creative commons licence myself?

Copyright laws differ from country to country, and there seems to be a different licence text for each country. Nobody has written a licence for New Zealand law that I've found yet. Actually on Kiore.com I have chosen to release under a CC licence, even though it may be partially incompatible with New Zealand law. At the bottom of ever page is 'Except for journal entries, and obvious quotes under different licences, content on [that] site signed [my common bylines], or "Kiore.com" may be reproduced under the terms of the Creative Commons Licence.' with a pointer to the licence I've chosen to use (Non commercial, must give attribution, modified versions are to be released under the same licence).
So, why don't I do that here? While I've been typing this I've realised that the same logic I applied on kiore.com applies here. I think I'll update my template to make that point.

The fifth Kiore

Until about 10 minutes ago I knew 3 meanings of 'Kiore', and was dimly aware that there was something unknown in Korean that looked like "Kio Re".

The ones I knew

• The New Zealand Rat
• in the Manx Language, it's the word for "four"
• Somewhere in Albania is the town of Kiore

Today when browsing I found in the ICUN Red List of Threatened Species that Hippocampus abdominalis, the big or pot-belly seahorse, is sometimes known, in New Zealand, as "Kiore".

A Google search found 12 entries, one gives the Maori Kiore-waitai.

As pre-European Maori didn't have the horse, saying it looked to them like a rat makes sense.

Boxers in skirts?

I'm not a boxing fan, but Samoan Kiwi David Tua is facing American fighter Talmadge Griffis in the first of his comeback bouts at Waitakere Trust Stadium. Round one is currently on TV.

I don't know if it's a nod to his Polynesian heritage or what, but Tua appears to be wearing a mini-skirt.

I guess he's big enough to shrug off any flack.

HaloScan

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog. Well, that's what they said they'd add. What they didn't make clear is you lose the blogspot commenting ... including the stored comments! It may not be a biggie, but ... people made those comments, I don't want to throw them away just because I've added trackback. So, about 2 hours later I have both sets of comments showing on my blog. It's ugly, but ... Let's see how it goes. What's really really ugly is I seem to have doubled up the haloscan insert on the individual article pages. Now that needs to be fixed, but not tonight.

Yahoo! 360

Yahoo! are readying their assault on the world of blogging and social networking. At the moment it's in beta and they are doing the Gmail "Invite only" trick, so you can't just sign-up for an account. This is a shame as I'd like to at least experiment with the software. If anyone from Y! is listening, I'd love an invite, email me: yahooinvite.u.kiore@antichef.com. One thing they are doing that's, I believe, unfortunate is that you need to be logged on to Y! to even view blogs. Most of the blog directories and search engines won't like blogs that are password protected. Here's hoping that they reverse this decision soon, so I can report on it myself.

What others say

Michael Schuermann has reviewed the service.

The interface is very well designed. It works smoothly in both Firefox and Internet Explorer, and is very clean. In fact, it properly uses CSS and XHTML for it’s design. No tables used for layout as far as I could find.

The blogging tool is the centerpiece of the experience, and overall it’s pretty nice. The blog entry form is WYSIWYG, which will be a benefit to blogging newbies or others without HTML knowledge. However, there’s no spell checker that I could find. I would suggest that Yahoo add one ASAP, so that we’ll be spared from posts rife with misspelled words.

Tristan Louis says

The first thing that is apparent is that this is more than just a blogging package or social network one. From the name to the way one's web page is integrated with other parts of Yahoo!, it is clear that this is a longer term play with attempts at integration.

While some integration points are pretty solid (Yahoo! messenger, Yahoo! Launch, Yahoo! local, and the Yahoo! photo service seem well integrated), others are major misses. For example, why is it that this service has a different mailbox than my already existing Yahoo! mailbox? (and does that mean I now need to check mail in two accounts?) Going further, why are services like Yahoo profile and Geocities not integrated in this? It seems they would be natural integration point and yet they are nowhere to be seen. Last but not least is the main question about integration of my.yahoo and "My page" on this service. There should be another natural point of integration there, shouldn't there be?

[Update 10:31 AM 31 March] I've deleted a reference to copyright. Yahoo have explained that there was a technical mistake caused by a cut and paste from some existing code and that blog contents are copyright by their owners. See the first comment to this posting for more. I'm a software developer myself and I know that the purpose of a beta is to find and fix bugs. Yahoo! are doing just that.[/Update] Danah Boyd's summary

Anyhow, my general impression is that i'm wary, but i don't think that this is for me and i think it will be nice for the heavily integrated Yahoo user.

Marc Canter enthuses

Can't yah feel the vibe?

That's the sound of a 100,000 rushing into the next big thing - Yahoo 360. Over the coming days people's impressions will be revealed on this hybrid social network/blogging tool.

Just to be clear. This is what I call a DLA (digital lifestyle aggregator.) No they didn't get completely right- but it does successfully combine these two latest technology aspects - which each have been hailed as new 'spaces' (marketplaces, trends, what have you.)

Browsing the blogscape

This evening

I've been browsing blogs. Not just any blogs, but popular blogs. I called up the blogrolling top 100 and looked at the top 50. Now as far as I could tell these are sites that blogrolling's users, mostly bloggers themselves, have added to their links. Examining these sites should tell me what other bloggers believe makes a useful blog.

What did I see

The majority of sites I visited had a better layout and design than the default template I have here, but some were far worse; so pretty is good, but ultimately it's content not pretties. Most sites were well written. One or two were scarcely literate, so there's hope for me yet. Many sites have a strong theme, but some are personal. Themes are good, if you have a single strong, central subject you want to write regularly on. This is a personal site based around my idiosyncratic tastes, so a single leitmotiv is unlikely. A lot of them commented on the world news of the moment. Article length varied vastly. Some had essays, some were one or two paragraphs.

Conclusions

There seem to many definitions of what makes a good blog. I think I'll look for a visual improvement by switching to a more appealing template. Other than that I shall continue to write about what I want, approximately as often as I fee like it.

Faith

Falsafah

Falsafah means the love and pursuit of wisdom and knowledge. Serenity ; Calmness. A few weeks back I mentioned her blog.

I was back there today, she said "hello", and I wanted to catch up on how she did with work, her exams, and "Mr Nice Nose".

I could be a bastard and make you go and look, but to summarise she's reasonably confident of a pass, not working for money but developing her cartoons, and "Mr Nice Nose" seems to have dropped off the horizon.

Excursion

These are the bits of her blog that inspired this posting. Please read (after you've read mine, of course .. I'll give the links again at the bottom), the first posting talks of her visit to the Islamic section of her local cemetery (I gather from context that she is follows Islam). Here the Moslem dead lie between Christians, Hebrews, Chinese (Taoists?), Persians (?? This escapes me as Zoroastrians didn't bury the dead, perhaps Bahá'í, perhaps monophysite Christians), even the Ahmadiyan (Qadiyanis). Ahmadiyani aren't even permitted to pray for Moslem dead (Rioy av Religinter, pp. 69), yet here they lie next to them.

The second posting is also entitled Faith. She talks about her visit to a restaurant with her auntie and how her faith gets her through rough times.

The blessings I got through people made me believe more in the Almighty's existence.

Why does sickness and sadness bring some people closer to the Almighty?

Why are most god-loving people sad, poor and ill?

They don't match up to the expectations of the materialistic. What's here is temporary and what's beyond is eternal.

Sadness is like a hidden beauty. Most of the time, with spiritual guidance, it's negative power moves you to create something beautiful - like art, music, writing and devoting your time helping the less fortunate.

Her belief in a greater power gives her strength and the ability to continue through hardships.

Faithlessness

I, on the other hand am an agnostic. Please note, I am not an atheist; there's a big difference. Faith, loosely defined is the belief in something that can not be proved; something beyond the human experience. Atheists have a religious belief, they have faith, their faith is that there is no deity. Agnostic is a constructed antonym of Gnostic which comes from the Greek A- "not" and Gnostikos "One who knows"; in other word an agnostic doesn't know if there is a deity, or not. Some Agnostics believe it is not possible to know, I am not one of them either.

I've spent a lot of my adult life searching for the deity (or deities) and have come to the conclusion that if there is a deity, either he isn't ready for me to believe in him, or he doesn't feel I am ready. Either way I didn't find him (or her). OK, let's cover what I found out. God(s) are either supernatural beings that existed before the universe, and caused humanity to exist, this is the basic Judeo Christian Islamic belief; or Gods descend in some way from humans, this is in the Chinese religion where Gods start off as ghosts and gain position, and also was the ancient English (Scandinavian / Germanic) religion where the gods and people both descended from Bori, the first man. Does this help? Not really, just adds to the confusion.

I grew up in a Christian country, and my agnostic/atheist parents sent me to a Presbyterian Sunday school, so my tendencies are towards the God that existed before the universe and created everything from the ylem to the silicon my computer is made of. Reading the Torah, the Gospels, the Koran, even the book of Mormon (but like the bullet I couldn't get through Second Nephi). None of this helped though. Talking to the faithful isn't much better, they are totally convinced of their beliefs, that is what Faith means, but their faith is not mine. Some try "proving" their beliefs, unfortunately as Douglas Adams pointed out "Proof denies faith, and without faith I [God] am nothing". Actually he wasn't the first, I think Jesus is recorded as saying something similar about St Thomas.

The other thing they do that gets my goat is showing weaknesses in the arguments of the opposing camp and treating that as proof of their standpoint. That's as ludicrous as saying that "as fundamentalist Christians believe that pi is 3.0 (I Kings, 7:23), I can show that pi is more than 3.0, therefore fundamentalist Christians are wrong and pi must be 4.0". In logic this is known as the fallacy of Non sequitur. You see this a lot in creationist arguments, both Christian and Islamic, where the supposed inability of evolutionary proponents is taken as proof that the Biblical / Koranic version must be true. Of course it does nothing of the kind; proving that pi is more than 3.0 doesn't prove it is any other incorrect value; proving that there is not [yet] an explanation for the evolution of salt water tolerance in dolphins (One I remember from The Worldwide Church of God does not prove that dolphins were created exactly as they are today. Equally the Athiest position sometimes comes from "I don't believe the Bible story, hence there is no [Deity]" is a Non sequitur. Just as illogical.

Problem is I can't find the faith to believe that the Deity exists. Sure a lot of the stories resonate: God creating man then commanding all the angels to bow down to his greatest creation, and they all obeyed, except Iblith; God appearing to Moses in the form of a burning bush and then, as humans would be destroyed by his face, permitting Moses to gaze upon his hindparts; Job having a faith so strong that every torment that was sent to test him was shrugged off; God commanding Jesus to be, and he was. If you examine the stories, none of the prophets were given any real choice in the matter. They didn't have faith, God (or an Angel) came and rammed themselves down the prophets' throats.

Adam met and talked with the deity; Moses as I mentioned before was sent pretty convincing proof; Jesus at Gethsemane is recorded as saying "Remove this cup from Me" (Luke 22:42) as he feared going through with God's plan but concluded "Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done" (Luke 22:42) Jesus had seen too much to be able to deny what he experienced. Job, Ezekiel, Mohomet, the Bab, Joseph Smith all were forced by the Deity to believe; not faith, but actual knowledge. Yet, the Bible records when Thomas wanted that proof he was reproved.

Thomas, of course was forgiven, and the Acts record him travelling to Asia to spread the Gospel. In India he is credited with founding the indigious Mar Thoma Christian community; travelling to China and back, ultimately he was martyred in Chennai. I've been to the place where he is supposed to have landed, and seen his bones and the arrow heads that are presumed to have killed him. Thomas had no more choice than Adam, Moses, Jesus, or the others. Of course, where he went he left a monophysite form of Christianity very different from the polytheistic Trinitarian form the successors to St Paul ultimately legalised by the corrupt and degenerating later Roman Empire.

Faith revisited

Perhaps that's the meaning of Faith, and why it is so important. Your life isn't destroyed and you still have hope; a future; a comfort. So Falsafah, perhaps you could endorse love, pursuit of wisdom. Serenity ; Calmness. Add knowledge to that list and your life may be changed, not necessarily to your advantage.

Me? I'd settle for either faith or proof.

Postscript

I said I'd repeat those links, here they are: Cemetary trip, and Faith.

Now Grandfather was an inventor

Another bit of browsing

I'm waiting for Ethohost to fix an issue with the server, and being Easter Monday it's a wet autumn day so I've been doing a little browsing today. Here's one from kimthew.com

"In Rose Family lore, there are a great many things my grandfather was supposed to have invented. Some of the stories are actually true. He played a role in designing prefab housing after World War Two, and true to his roots as an unreconstructed Fabian, told a reporter from the London Times he didn't understand 'why we don't make similar buildings today for the homeless.' As a kid, every time I traveled on an airplane, one parent or other would mention that Papa had some role in making the black squishy resin that glued the slabs of concrete together to form runways. This is unverified and probably apocryphal, but I promise to ask next time we talk. "His other great breakthrough in the world of applied chemistry was the development of fusible interlinings, a manufacturing process that allowed apparel makers to glue garments' interior linings to their exterior fabric, obviating the need for skilled craftsmen to stitch the pieces together. Faithless to his roots as an unreconstructed Fabian, he transformed the schmatte business by allowing companies to fire lots of people and move their operations to Bangalore."

I find this interesting because both Dad & I have invented things, but nothing has ever come of them. When he was a young man Dad invented a kind of electric guitar ... Not the electric guitar as we know it, but a feedback loop on an acoustic guitar that caused a plucked string to vibrate forever until the musician decided to stop the string and then when I was a young child he and a friend had a provisional patent on a television aerial that was placed under wallpaper. From memory he gave up on that one because he couldn't find a manufacturer interested in turning the idea into a finished product. In my case, the one that really rankles was having the basic idea for a mountain bike, stronger frame, lower gears, wider tyres. I called it the "off-road bike". I never got beyond the thought experiment stage because I listened to my friends who thought nobody but me would ever be interested in riding a push bike off-road. It looks like Matthew's grandfather took his idea of fusible interlinings and pursued it with a single minded dedication. Something that both Dad & I have lacked. What would have happened if, rather than accepting a "No" from people quite happy making what they always made, Dad and his friend had invested a bit of money and made the aerials themselves? What if I'd tried for a patent on the "off-road" bicycle? I don't know if I'll ever have another flash of inspiration, but if I do I'm going with it to see where it leads me.

A large salesman of dreams!

Aside

You have to admire those French for style and panache. The page un grand vendeur de rêve which FireFox translate tool rendered as "A large salesman of dream[s]!" shows a man by a lake wearing a mint condition fisherman's vest, carrying a brand new fishing rod that's taller than he is ... and he's caught a fish the size of his hand.

---

Original link broken by 2015. Web archive (Missing picture) substituted.

Stupid crooks

Found on the net, a story of a really stupid thief

Scotsman.com News Archive - Hello, hello, hello- your nicked

A handbag thief was snared by police after answering his victim’s mobile phone and agreeing to return it.

"The sneak thief did not know he was talking to PC Mark Pickavance when he answered the phone hours after stealing it."

OK, street thieves are never the sharpest knife in the draw, but this guy wasn't even the sharpest spoon.

Pacific Island Pigs

The pig followed human colonisation of the pacific, so why did it get to the Polynesian islands, but miss out on reaching New Zealand until European contact? Or did it?

I got alerted to this through a web search turning up a paper from 2001 by Melinda S. Allen, Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith and Ann Horsburgh, researchers at Auckland University, who became interested as an outgrowth of the genetic work of Matisoo-Smith and colleagues on the ancestry and historic dispersal of the kiore. My interest in cute little furry creature is dealt with elsewhere.

Their paper begins "Pig was one of three animal domesticates in prehistoric Polynesia, transported from Near Oceania into Polynesia as far afield as the Hawaiian Islands by the region's earliest colonists."

Summarising Allen et al

Humans introduced pigs into New Guinea at an unknown date with archeological traces from 6000 BP, or perhaps much earlier, and "By 3000 BP, pig had been dispersed to West Polynesia (including Fiji) by Lapita-pottery bearing populations, along with dog, chicken, and the Pacific Rat." They spend some time discussing the absence of the pig from Easter Island and New Zealand, then got into discussing mitochondrial DNA analysis which unfortunately went over my head in places, but if I read them correctly they have been unable to do mitochondrial DNA analyses on ancient bone samples, but on modern pigs they have tests that distinguish Polynesian from European pigs and the New Zealand kune-kune pig corresponds to neither breed.

No pigs on Easter Island (Rapanui)

"In general, there is a decline in flora and fauna as one moves from the large, rich Melanesian islands, to the smaller and more remote Polynesian ones. Rapanui is the extreme of this rule. In ancient times, livestock consisted of the Polynesian chicken and rat (Kio`e), there being no evidence of either pigs or dogs." G. McCall

Pigs in New Zealand

So if the Polynesian ancestors of the Maori had pigs were there pigs in New Zealand before European contact? Apparently not

"There is a most interesting Maori reference to pigs in the journals of Sir Joseph Banks, who accompanied Cook on his first voyage to New Zealand. Near the North Cape of the North Island in December 1769, Cook's Tahitian interpreter, Tupaea, was told by the local Maoris that N.W. by N. or N.N.W. was a large country to which some people had sailed to in a very large canoe, the passage taking up to a month.

"From this expedition some members returned and told their countrymen that they had seen a country where people ate hogs. And for these animals they used the same name, Booah, as is used in the Islands.

"Though Tupaea ridiculed the story, claiming that it could only be believed if they had brought back pigs to prove it there is a good reason to regard this as a memory of a return voyager to Tonga, Samoa, or even the lower Islands." -- Percy Tipene

OK, if the pig wasn't here before the Europeans, and isn't a European or Polynesian breed, where on earth did Cook get them from? If seems possible he didn't. Percy Tipene's paper suggests that the ancestor of the kune-kune may well have been introduced by later European visitors.

And finally

What happened to the Polynesian chicken? Enquiring minds want to know.

Farewell

A sad day for the Clement tribe as we farewelled one of our number. Michael is now in the air travelling back to his home in Australia. Diana picked me up before 10:30 AM and we headed over to Mum and Dad's. They were all downstairs to see Michael off. Apparently Dad had insisted. Michael got quite emotional as he knows that this may well be the last time he sees his father, probably Dad worked on the theory. I was thinking what it must have been like for Dad in 1972 when we left the UK at the end of our 8 week visit, even though he was much fitter than Dad is now, Dad must have had similar thoughts about his father; and in those days you didn't make international calls as readily as we do today. Diana dropped Mike and I off at the airport to get him checked in, while he was doing that I returned his rental SIM card to Vodaphone, then Diana picked us up and we went of to the butterfly creek cafe for lunch. After lunch we talked for a while and then it was time to drop him back for a farewell. Not as hard for me & Diana as we can be reasonably certain of meeting up again, Bon voyage Mike.

Cadbury Trademarks the Colour Purple

Seen while browsing

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things reports:

"and they're not alone How does a company trademark a color? Boing Boing reader Rob says, Because it's Easter, I find myself in the possession of a Cadbury chocolate product. What do I find on the back? 'Cadbury, ellipse device, dairy milk, the glass and a half device and THE COLOUR PURPLE are Cadbury Limited trademarks used under licence in New Zealand by Cadbury Confectionery Ltd.' All our purple are belong to Cadbury Confectionery Ltd.!"

They've put in a few updates noting other colour copyrights from around the world.

Background

As this is a New Zealand trademark I thought I'd search for other NZ trademarks on colours. First up, Simpson Grierson have a PDF discussion analysis based on the trademark commissioner's ruling on Telecom's earlier failed attempt to trademark the colour yellow. This sets forth a number of principles including that the colour must be defined by a classification system such as the Pantone system. This was followed by an ominous note that the requirements would differ from industry to industry.

Chocolate, on the other hand seems to have different rules, and Cadbury have succeeded. Norris Ward McKinnon have a piece on the history of the Cadbury claim pointing out that they have been trying to protect it since 1999, and had a run-in with the makers of Harry Potter chocolates. They finish with

"Trade mark changes that came into force last year have relaxed the boundaries of what things may be trade marked. Many colours are now trade marks owned by various companies, and associated with various products. The colour green is now exclusively BP's in relation to petrol station services. The colour yellow cannot be used by any of Telecom's rival printers of telephone directories. No home insulation manufacturer can use the colour pink other than Pink Batts, and Sunlight dishwashing liquid has rights over the sound of a 'squeak'. Arguably it is just a matter of time before 'purple' becomes a Cadbury trade mark."

Obviously the prediction has come true.

Another snippet from AJ Park's Brandscape talks about past efforts to trademark the colour Green for motor oils, apparently BP have managed to trademark it in some jurisdictions, and prevented others trademarking it in others; Nestles succeeded getting green for Milo, but V failed.

The future

How many identifiable colours are there? OK, paint colour cards & the Pantone system list thousands, my computer claims to be able to make millions, but twiddling the lowest few bits on colour codes make little or no difference to the colour perception, and there's more variation between different monitors than these low order changes make, so let's say there's 500 truly different colours. If every manufacturer can trademark only one of those colours, we'd be limited to 500 brands in each category. With WTO trademarks, that would be 500 products worldwide.

Problem is manufacturers don't play fair. Once they have peach, they'd put out a slight variation of their brand in nectarine, then gala, etc. I'm sure a certain software vendor who are well known for their ubiquitous 'Blue screen of Death' will be rushing to trademark the colour blue, and it won't just be the royal blue they use there, it will every variation they can think of. Soon new entrants won't be able to get into the market because every colour they try to make their products is already someone else's trademark.

I despair of the future in this increasingly corporatised world.

aside

Blogger.com's spell checker doesn't recognise 'Cadbury', its only suggested correction is 'Cadaver'.

Lunch at the Observatory

Limping

It must be a long weekend or something. Not only is there a lot of rain about, but after my shower this morning I managed to kick a chair leg. The toe next to the little toe is now swollen and a charming navy blue.

We had a family lunch planned for today, and Mum Dad and Michael were coming over to drop off my DVD player and mattress and pick up Mum's spade. My original plan was to cycle down to the restaurant and go on to the library and do some other shopping before returning home. With a sore toe I decided to hitch a ride down with them.

Sky Tower

We parked in the building, but getting in was still a bit of an effort, we went up in the lift to ground floor, then had to go back down in the lift to parking level 3 for the wheelchair access. Would have been nice if they'd publicised that a bit more. Got through that and Diana was waiting for us by the lifts. I hate that lift. Glass door, so I face away from it.

Seating

I wasn't impressed by the way they seated us. There were five people in our party and they had laid an extra place at a four person table. This would mean that someone, probably Dad would be sticking out into the walkway. Diana spoke up and asked to be moved to another table, the seating guy didn't want to, but could obviously see that we were serious, so moved us. He warned that there was a party of 20 at the next few tables, but we accepted this as the lesser of two evils.

Food

The Observatory is a buffet, and although the selection was relatively small there was a reasonable choice of food, except for the meat dishes. Seafood in the form of several types of shellfish, prawns, fish (marinated, crumbed, and salmon) was plentiful. Red meat was less so, roast smoked duck and ham. Not much on offer for those who keep to informal kosher or halal diets. Luckily I'm a practicing agnostic and can eat whatever I enjoy.

For $37.50 a head, I think the selection was a little lean, but not excessively so, and although this isn't the rotating restaurant, restaurants like this one are mainly trading on the view not the food, so I'll accept that it wasn't unreasonable.

My tastes have definitely changed in recent years and I really like the purity of taste found in some types of food, for example Japanese cooking. The salmon, ham, salads, potatoes, and to a lesser extent duck all gave me this. On the other hand there was plenty for those liking more muddled tastes. They had scallops in the shell on potatoes with a cheese sauce, Diana really liked them, I thought they were OK.

Service

Here I think they really let themselves down. One of the waiting staff was a gnome that darted up and snatched plates away, at least three times before we had finished with them. For me I became annoyed when she grabbed my pudding plate while I was still eating the pudding, then tried to do the same to Dad, but gave it back when he protested, finally she attempted to make off with my cheese plate while I still had a piece of cheese in my hand. I waved the cheese at her and said "do you mind?".

As Diana pointed out, they really should advise people that coffee isn't included in the meal price. Again, not a biggie, so it didn't worry me too much, although Mum was upset. What did annoy me was that the coffee took a long time coming and wasn't hot on arrival. Diana was having a cappuccino and noticed this so sent it back. Obviously they made it and left it sitting before bringing it out, I think they should take the gnome off plate-snatching duties and use her obvious energy and speed to get the coffee out to the customers. As I was having a long black I wasn't too worried, but it would have been nice to have had it fresh.

Final rating 5/10; they would have got 7/10 if they improved the service.

Finding my blog

Finally Google's listing my index page. The cache says it was spidered three days ago. I'm looking forward to finding the other pages searchable real soon.

Now to get into a few directories. Searching G for blog directories turned up 7 million hits, yikes! OK they're not all going to be directories, but even so. So apply for listing a few at a time seems a good move.

First-up

• ageless
• Blogarama.com
• blogcatalog.com
• bloghub.com
• blogfinds.com
• blogsearchengine.com
• blogwise.com
• Daypop
• DMOZ
• getblogs.com
• blog.hotornot.com Is my Blog HOT or NOT?
• L S Blogs.com
• WilsdomainBlog Directory Add Your Blog
• Yahoo
• yourwebloghere.com

Enough for one day. Should only take me another million days to complete the list. Smiles.

One Security Technique

MSMS Alumni Association FAQ: "What went wrong and why:

As far as alumni were concerned, Garfield was pretty much the same at this point. But, since alumni and students could login, the firewall wasn't exactly serving its purpose. For example, Garfield was hacked by outside persons (non-alumni) and much havok was caused. In addition, a group of students were caught hacking garfield. This (plus the fact that if you can login to the proxy server you can circumvent the proxy server) caused a decision to be made to not allow telnet access to student or alumni. In fact, telnet access from the outside is disallowed completely. Mysteriously, login access disappeared for everyone, causing much confusion. It was at this point that I (David Bradley) came over to MSMS to discuss the status of garfield with the network administrator. Garfield (due to repeated security problems) was sent off to UrLabs to be reinstalled. As a consultant to MSMS at the time, I (David Bradley) zipped up all the user accounts, the website, mail, etc., and burned them to CDs because alumni couldn't exactly retrieve those files themselves. To this day, those CDs have remained on a shelf next to the server, waiting to be called upon in the event someone had a really important file in their account. When the machine returned from UrLabs, they have reinstalled everything, updated the version of the OS and the proxy software."

Well, yes, I suppose that they've secured their server. Disallow all access. Burn the content to CDROMs and keep them next to the server. But what a price.

Slashdot Moderation

Downgrading a post I agreed with

I logged into Slashdot this morning and for the second time this week I had moderation points. Slashdot's rules say you can't post and moderate in the same thread, so as I usually do I picked for moderation a reasonably new article where I would have no interest in posting. Today was one on Comprehensive Guide to the Windows Paging File . One of the posts basically said to dump Windows and install Linux. I'm a contented user of SuSE Linux, so this is something I have done myself, for my home machines at least, and advocate. Problem was that the comment wasn't relevant to the topic, and had been repeated several times, so the moderation was fair, but it felt strange. At least I've done my civic duty, got rid of the mod points and can go back to reading at score 2+

Thunder and lightning and a quiet lunch

The Storm

Woke to the sound of thunder. Looked outside to see the rain coming down interspersed with flashes, and bangs from the clouds. Some up close, some far away, one was right overhead. I mucked around a bit and started getting ready. The storm broke so I phoned Mum to let her know I'd be able to come over for lunch on my bike. So I left and started peddling, straight into my normal head wind. Grrrr. At least this time the wind didn't turn the corner to be in my face.

Lunch

When I arrived at Mum & Dad's Cathy was already there. She's changed her hair to a short spiky look and is looking much healthier than I've seen her look in a long time.

Lunch was Mum's usual pasta spirals, cheese and tomatoes with bacon. This was served with French Bread and this being Good Friday, a hot cross bun to finish. There were 5 of us there and a 1/2 dozen buns. Mum seemed confused that after everyone had a bun there was still one left. Before, during, and after the lunch Cathy was phrasing things in a strange way for her. Later in the afternoon she dropped a bit of a bombshell. Whatever, I hope she's happier with this latest choice than with the earlier one.

Cathy was saying that every time she got with the group she'd been mixing with they were so strange she wondered what she was doing there. It's really weird, but I mix with a group that's even less mainstream, and yet other than the obvious, they typically tend to be the most sane, middle of the road group of people I've ever met. Go figure.

Home time

I was tiring badly by this point. Mike suggested going out for dinner but I knew my legs wouldn't want to do that and then do lunch tomorrow. I rode home, but didn't make it in one go. I chose to go up Mount Eden Road, but I needed to stop for a brief rest at Three Kings and then again just before Balmoral road.

I'm pretty tired tonight and can't wait to shake this thing.

The bug

Went to the doctor's this morning. Complete waste of time. Nothing in the being run down he could help with. The cyst isn't developed enough to do much with & he couldn't cut it out. The vaccinations I need for the trip need to be done around August. Steve mentioned that he'd been having similar symptoms, since the trip, including a strange pain just above the hip. I hadn't even considered that this might be related.

Well That Was Easy

We've got a rush project on at work at the moment. We need to repackage the flagship product in a 'Light' version for faster, simpler, and so cheaper installs. The project sponsor have sent us a list of the windows tagged to show what should and shouldn't be available in 'Light' and I started on the coding today. Building the structures to control window availability was quite easy, and I took the spreadsheet listing of available windows & turned that into some code. Then I ran the built-in list of windows against that code to generate a control file. To make sure we hadn't missed anything I set it to log anything that wasn't on the list. I was surprised by the number of error messages I got about unspecified windows. One in particular raised a smile. On my way out the door for the Easter weekend I stuck my head around Jo's door and said "I've just finished [Light], well, at least nobody will be able to prove otherwise." "That's impossible" she said. "Not at all," I replied "The operator log in screen wasn't in the list of available windows." ... As the old saying goes, "It's hard to soar with the eagles when you roost with the turkeys."

Tickle.com IQ Test

LOL. Normally I don't click on banner ads, but I was on a dull site & there was one of those test your IQ banners. I was a bit bored so I clicked on it. Here's what they came up with:

Congratulations, Julia! Your IQ score is 138 This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others. Your Intellectual Type is Visionary Philosopher. This means you are highly intelligent and have a powerful mix of skills and insight that can be applied in a variety of different ways. Like Plato, your exceptional math and verbal skills make you very adept at explaining things to others — and at anticipating and predicting patterns. And that's just some of what we know about you from your IQ results. Find out more in your personalized 15-page IQ Report. It's ready right now!

Like Plato? Come off it. The key here is the personalised 15 page report, for which they want $19. Computer generated I'll bet, full of platitudes (or is that Platotudes?) No thanks. Weirdly enough I clicked my profile there and it looks like I took a very similar test back in August. That time I scored 135 and they said:

Your Intellectual Type is Visual Mathematician. This means you are gifted at spotting patterns both in pictures and in numbers. These talents combined with your overall high intelligence make you good at understanding the big picture, which is why people trust your instincts and turn to you for direction especially in the workplace. And that's just some of what we know about you from your test results.

Phhhhhhhhht! I guess I should try a similar test there in another 5 months & I'll get over 140.

Not my best day

Yes, I definitely have started coming down with something. By lunchtime I felt I had no energy. I'm not sure how I got through the afternoon. I had to cancel out of bridge tonight, shame because I was looking forward to it after missing out last week. I also suspect I've got another sebaceous cyst coming through .... Great, more antibiotics, so another 10 days of digestive upsets.

This would be a very bad time to take sick days, so I'm hoping I can soldier through to the weekend. Day at a time and all that.

Got an email from Google today. They have a new type of adsense that gives links to page search ads. I can't put a sample on here, so I've dummied up a page on bad.co.nz with one. Will try integrating them with my pages

Mexico For Kids

Stumbled across while browsing

"This site belongs to the Presidency of the Republic of Mexico." Available in English, Spanish, Italian, and French. A simply written explanation of Mexican history and Mexico today. The site is aimed at children. I would guess from the language that intermediate age children are the target audience. Well written for the target audience.

Monday

Somebody who shall remain nameless is writing this blog while sucking on some frozen Coca-Cola. Oh alright, seeing as you guessed, it's me, but I'm getting ahead of the story.

Q, 5, and 9

I got into a one-sided bidding war yesterday for q.net.nz I had an auto-bid on and as the end of bidding approached I watched the other person make bids, get instantly out-bid, pause, and increase until he reached my auto-bid limit. I thought about it and placed a higher auto-bid limit and watched him slowly stagger up to that value. Single letter domain names are interesting and rare, but only a sideline for me and I'd already decided that this was my limit so I let him have it. On Saturday when I first saw that q.net.nz was coming up for auction I did a little research and discovered that 5.net.nz and 9.net.nz were unregistered, so I grabbed them on the spot. This morning I wrote a letter to the winner of last night's auction congratulating him on his win & asking if he would be interested in these domain names as well. So far I haven't heard back. If I don't get a reply I'll probably auction them off in the near future anyway, they just aren't a good match for my little hobby.

Tourist

Spent the day with Mike. He drove over late morning and we caught the bus down to Symonds street, we then went for a wander. We walked the length of K-Road, and around the corner into Ponsonby Road. I tried to think what had changed in the last 20 odd years and point it out. Not sure how good a guide I was, but he didn't complain too much and after the first hour was too busy gnawing his arm off to escape to complain. We stopped at Otto Woo's for lunch . We both opted for the teriyaki chicken and I was underwhelmed. In retrospect I should have done my homework a little better. A recent review said "Otto Woo has really gone downhill, the food used to be fresh and fabulous and now I think your local Chinese takeout could easily surpass them in portion sizes and taste." Much how I felt about the meal myself. After lunch we continued up to the top of College Hill where I showed Mike where the first Willows store had been and caught the Link bus down to Queen street, then wandered up the road a bit and had coffee, after which it was off to the Auckland City Art Gallery. I quite enjoyed the walk around there, although another patron opened an alarmed door on the first floor so we wandered downstairs and looked around the ground floor for a while, then by the time we were ready to go back up the alarm was over. The main temporary exhibition was Handboek a retrospective of Ans Westra photographs. Ans is a Dutch immigrant who has been photographing Maori events for over 40 years. After that burst of culture we wandered down Queen Street and cut up to Albert street via the spiral-staircase-alley, whatever it's name make be, having another coffee at the cafe at the base of the stairs, once there I showed Mike where the second Willows store had been ... Immediately below the window that had been my office window 10 years earlier. Then down to The Viaduct and the old Americas Cup village. NZL 40 & 41 were there, as was the biggest private motor yacht I've ever seen. Three stories above the waterline! Finally down to Britomart and the new railway station where we caught the train back to Newmarket and walked back to my place and talked some more. Total elapsed time about 8 hours. It was good having a chance to catch up and I hope Mike liked it as much as I did.

Frozen Coke

With all that walking I was a little tired & decided to have some fruit juice, so I squeezed a couple of oranges and a lemon then went to put the juice in the freezer to chill down. When I opened the freezer door I was greeted by a sticky black liquid. It seems that I'd forgotten I'd put a can of coke in there & it had decided to explode. I took the can out of the freezer & noticed it was ticking! Weird, after looking at it for a while I decided it was the gasses trying to force their way out. I tossed the can upside down in a large glass & waited for the juice to cool. The juice was nice, but I wanted something else so out with the can opener & spooned out the "Sorbet". Once mixed with a fresh can of unfrozen drink it made a passable chilled drink.

Family Lunch

Met up with Mum, Dad, Michael, Diana, Cliff, Maia, and Milo at D-17 Chinese restaurant in Dominion road. As far as I can tell, after Valentines it's Mum & Dad's favourite eatery, so we seem to end up there a few times a year. Dad was really bad. Very white, red eyes, he seemed to have no energy. Except that he ate, I wasn't even sure he knew where he was. On the other hand he seems to like chili oil so I fetched him a side plate of that so he could dip his dumplings. I also slipped across the road to the Chinese supermarket there & bought him a jar of it so he could enjoy it at home. As Mum says he has so little in his life now that every little pleasure is appreciated. The funniest thing is Mum, who doesn't like (spicy) hot food asked me if the chili oil was hot & I said it was very hot. Later she took some of the oil from my side dish & put it on some of her food. After tasting it she said in a pained voice "You weren't joking when you said it was hot". The lunch was OK, but I kept looking over at Dad & didn't enjoy my meal as much as I have on previous occasions. Went back to Mum & Dad's afterwards. I stayed about an hour then cycled home. My body didn't like that & at the hilliest bit of Pah road I had to get off and walk for a bit. I've definitely got something. When I got home I reached in my pocket for my keys & pulled out Mum & Dad's car keys. I was so glad when Mum told me they have a spare set so I didn't need to cycle all the way back. I'm meeting up with Mike tomorrow & can give him the keys then.

Mike

Arrival

I cycled over to Mum & Dad's to see him but there was some confusion. When I got there I was greeted by a "Who's that" call from Mum. Apparently Diana was having trouble finding him at the airport and Mum was afraid that he had had the same trouble and ended up coming over under his own steam. I phoned Diana & she had found him and was in the process of bringing him over.

Back together again

Was good to catch up with Mike. Milo was pretty good for the first hour or so but then got bored & Diana took him off somewhere. Mike & I had a look around the bottom of the section where the new neighbours had chopped down the huge trees that dominated that corner and cut off so much light. Mum had said the neighbours could use the bottom of the section to get access for the felling & they obviously had. It was the first time in years I've been down there and not had to constantly watch for twigs trying to poke my eyes out. Then mike helped me get my dressing table back here -- finally. Haven't got the mirror yet, but that's a much simpler, one-person, job.

Dinner

Diana & Cliff arrived back with Chinese take-aways. Nice meal, but I was starting to get pretty tired. Afterwards I realised that I really-really-really did not want to cycle home. Luckily D&C have a people mover, so I was able to sit in a spare seat & they dropped me off.

The end of an era?

Morning

Took me all of it, but I finally managed to get everything switched across to my new machine. Test databases loaded, a couple of the versions of the product compiled up, necessary software loaded up, I know I haven't got Cygwin fully loaded, but I can live without that for a day or two.

Afternoon

Mid afternoon I noticed that the power cord was missing from the new intranet server I'm getting ready to replace the old one. It's been semi-live for a while and I've been waiting for a chance to upgrade the operating system on it to SuSE 9.2 Even with my amazing ability to miss the obvious, I could see that with no power cord nobody could be using it. So I grabbed my chance.

Final Farewell

Four thirty came around and we stopped for presentations and farewells. First Donald's 10 years with the company was noted then David's stepping down. Everyone that could be there was, including Aruna who managed to get in to the office ... when I went out for a smoke at one point I found out how, her husband had left work early to drive her in and look after their daughter. Aruna doesn't drive, and naturally you can't leave a 2 year old unattended. We all faithfully promised that is we ever got to the UK we'd call in and say "Hello" to David. By the time I left the office I was starting to feel really tired. I wish I could shake this. When I got home I just didn't feel like dinner, so I had a couple of bananas and left it at that.

And so to sleep

No need to point out that I'm having an early night tonight.

Back in the Office

Office

A fairly quiet day in the office. Steven had set up my new PC, but I had a few day's worth of email to take care of first. Then it was copying files off the old computer and onto the new. At lunch I popped down to Queen street and changed my Aussie dollars back to Kiwi. As always I lost on the exchange rate, but c'est la vie. I worked late, and at the end of the day I really felt like I hadn't done anything useful. Perhaps I did, it just doesn't feel like it.

Farewell Dinner

The penultimate act of David's stand-down was played out over a restaurant meal. Me, David, Steve, Grant and Donald sharing a rather nice Italian meal at Una Lira. We talked a lot about how good it had been to work together these last five years. Being me I had too much to eat. But I do so love fegatelli, then you have to have the main. Then who can resist an Italian dessert, this time cassata. Finally the espresso, and final thanks and we went our separate ways. Of course, Italian food is deceptive. You think you've had a meal, you feel full. Later that evening you feel really bloated, but you manage to find the one position that doesn't cramp your belly and you get to sleep. Then during the night the stuff keeps expanding, you wake up and hear your ribs creaking as they attempt to contain forces normally only found in the hearts of stars. A week or two later and you can walk without waddling.

Flying High

Breakfast

Got up. Showered, eventually. I couldn't find any soap. After looking around a bit I discovered that there were sachets marked "Cleansing bar" I think this must be PC for "Soap". Really!! Anyway, the stuff worked like soap, looked like soap, smelled like soap, and I passed on the taste test. 7:30 and we were all waiting outside for a quick ride to (I think) the James Street deli where I had ... yeah, ok, don't laugh ... the full cooked breakfast including bacon & scrambled eggs. The place is a delicatessen and cafe. While I was eating I spied some squid ink on sale. I've been wanting some of that since a couple of years back when I saw I saw an Irish cooking program on TV where they used squid ink in a pasta dish. Actually I think it was cuttlefish ink, like it's going to make a difference. I've tried making it with soy sauce, it would be good to try the real thing. I decided to risk MAF confiscating the stuff and bought some. While I was at the counter I saw a little tub of 'Zohra's Tamarind Chilli Jam' -- You know me, how could I resist. Smiles.

Office

Went to the office for about an uneventful hour & then off to the airport for the flight home.

In flight entertainment

There was a chick-flick showing on the plane's movie screen, so I turned to the entertainment I'd brought. In other words, I finally finished Frederik Pohl's O Pioneer!. The basic story has a futuristic computer hacker join a sponsored immigration to a "peace planet" shared by humans and five other species of sentient aliens. I was disappointed. Firstly the plot was very predictable, like watching an American TV program, you knew almost immediately who the bad people were, and the ending when it came may have been pulled out of a hat, but you knew it was coming. Secondly it seemed as if he had hastily cobbled together two drafts of the book. For example fairly early in the story the protagonist decoded the alien TV coding so he could watch their programs for a mixture of amusement and to learn more about how his neighbours thought. Later under plot pressure he hastily learned how to decode the aliens news broadcasts. Huh? Finally the story stopped. Yes all the loose ends were wrapped up, yes the bad guys got arrested, but it was as if Pohl decided he'd written 250 pages and it was time to finish. In my opinion this is definitely not one of his best works.

Auckland

I may buy some odd stuff overseas, but I always declare it & let the Agriculture & Fisheries (MAF) people sort out if I can bring it into the country. This time was no different. The man from MAF was bemused by my squid ink and quizzed me about why I wanted it. Eventually he conceded that he'd heard of Greek cooking using it too & let me through. He wasn't worried about the jam at all. A taxi home, phoned Mum, and I decided I was too knackered to do anything except get fish & chips and hit the sack. Still it was nice to be home.

Conference Day 2

Polar Bear's Picnic

The day started with another cooked breakfast. I have to admit that I went for the same as I had the previous day. Sorry, but I do love my bacon. Lucky I don't keep it at home or I'd be even heavier than I am now. After breakfast we assembled by the monorail station again & walked through to the polar bear enclosure. This time I had my camera. There are two young male bears at Seaworld, but they had a little accident and one of them was sporting a broken leg, so only the other one was out. He was a complete clown. He also liked performing around the window to the underwater viewing room, eventually he found a chewed rib cage on the bottom, so I suspect that the keepers encourage the bears to play there by lacing it with treats. Who cares, it was a great show, and I got quite a bit of video footage.

Conference

Much the same as yesterday. I got into far too much detail in my v.19 presentation and lost my audience. Luckily we were on a light timetable & had to cut it short before my audience resorted to gnawing their own arms off to escape.

Good news, we picked up a couple of potential beta sites for v.19. Finally!

Dinner

After the conference and the clean-up we all got ready to drive back. Unfortunately Chris left earlier & had to be phoned to return. He was needed to co-sign the cheque for the conference. We had to wait about 20 minutes for him to return ... Just lucky he hadn't left earlier or he would have been even further north. The drive back to Brisbane was fairly uneventful. We checked into the motel we were staying in and went off for dinner at Breakfast Creek Hotel. We were all still wearing the conference polo shirts & got asked by someone leaving if we were a cricket team. I assured him that, no, we were netball fans. I added parenthetically for my companions that I am a great fan of netball -- for all the wrong reasons. I forgot about the Australian tendency to overcook meat and asked for medium rare. When my rib fillet arrived it was on the well done side of medium. Next time I'll ask for rare, of course with my luck I'll end up with a blue steak. And so to bed.

Conference - Day 1

An early bird? Moi?

Woke up at 4:30 AM, or 7:30AM New Zealand time, and managed to doze a little until 5:30 when I finally gave up and dragged myself out of bed. Mucked around showering and getting dressed as long as I could but still found myself at the restaurant just after 6:30 AM. Cooked breakfast with Jo, David, and a couple of others from the con.

Formal sessions

Leonie & I had two sessions, back-to-back; GL integration and then Sales Order Processing (SOP) changes. Quite a baptism by fire. As it turned out, I was the one doing most of the talking with Leonie just there in a supporting role ... Definitely not how I wanted it to play out but such is life. One embarrassing moment in the first presentation came when one of the slides went up on the screen & I looked at it and got something like stage fright. Three bullet points, the night before I knew what they all meant but at that moment my mind went blank & I had no idea what the middle one meant. Luckily Leonie was able to come to my rescue. The SOP session wasn't too great. The presentation went well, barring one question from the floor for which I was unprepared. Luckily the customer that had originally requested that feature was in the audience & when I looked pleadingly in his direction he answered the question. During the break I made sure I went and thanked him. Another question was why we changed the system to give another option on saving virtual locations. My response wasn't considered, just a simple "A customer asked us for it (pause) I looked at the request & said 'That's a reasonable request' so we did it (pause) We do listen to our customers sometimes." Laughter from the audience. Unfortunately technology let me down. I was planning to end with a quick demo and the technology let me down. The database server decided to go down. At least it wasn't our product.

Evening - Formal dinner

This started when we were walked through Seaworld to their penguin enclosure for drinks and canapes. I hadn't taken my camera with me which was a shame. The dinner was a fairly good buffet. Lots of seafood, which I really tanked up on. They had crab-legs but nothing to crack them with, I must confess to making a bit of a mess using a table knife for that. By about 10:50 I was feeling that early start & a bit jet lagged, so I excused myself and went back to my room. Again I slept like a log.

Who Links To Me - Test

Just testing this out. Who Links Here

To Brisbane

Awake early

I was off-line for a few days, I'm backdating this and the next couple. Needed to be at the airport by 8AM this morning, so I decided I should arrive by 7:30; working back from that I booked a taxi for 6:45 and set the alarm for 6AM. Packed the night before, realised that I only filled a small portion of my back-pack, so I decided I could squeeze everything I needed into my day pack ... Great, nothing to check in. In the morning I was ready to go at 6:30, so I turned the computers, microwave, and video stack off, attempted to drown the pot-plants and stepped outside at 6:35. I just lit a cigarette and my taxi arrived 10 minutes early. While I was finishing the smoke a second taxi arrived. I can only assume that they had a hiccup & despatched two cabs. Had a dream run through and was in the check-in line by just after 7AM. Grrrrrrrr, I would have liked a bit more sleep, but never mind.

Killing time

What's to do at airports? One of the great dilemmas of the modern age. I ended up having breakfast at Macdonalds and wandering around aimlessly. Then I went through customs. I'm always cautious about what I take so, as usual, my pack went through the X-Ray without a hitch. One small amusement of the morning was watching the man at the next inspection station trying to explain the large pair of sissors he was carrying. Turkey. The flight was uneventful as was the drive down to Seaworld.

Lunch

We arrived at Seaworld early and our rooms weren't yet ready. We had already planned to go off and get lunch. Unfortunately Kathy and her passengers didn't arrive, and didn't arrive, and didn't arrive. It seems she took the scenic route. Smile. Eventually we were all there and took off to Southport for Fisherman's Wharf Bar/Restaurant. Foolishly I ordered the tempura whiting - definitely not tempura as I know it. It would be good old kiwi fish & chips, except the wedges were obviously cooked in oil that was too cold. Other wedges we had on the trip were much the same, I wonder if that's the ocker way of doing chips?

Evening

The conference started with a brief greeting to the customers and then it was onto the tall ship for a cruise. Despite having to play at hosting the customers, it was a nice little cruise & I quite enjoyed myself, but by the time it finished I was getting pretty tired. It may have only been 7:30PM local time, but it was 10:30 by my biological clock and I needed food & sleep ... Preferably in that order. It was a free evening, so my colleges & I could dine together without having to circulate among the customers, one of the did join us, but he's a former employee anyway so while we talked shop we could relax. Our dinner was at the Hatsu Hana Japanese restaurant in the resort. I had the sashimi which was tasty, balanced, and very nicely presented. Included with it was a fair sized serving of tuna, the obvious salmon, a white fish I'd not met before that reminded me of ruby fish more than anything, and a rolled up fish that seemed cooked, but was still flexible ... no idea what this was ... it was topped with some roe that made it almost into a cup. I enjoyed the dinner. The restaurant also has a tepanyaki table that was in use. It would have been nice to have tried that, but I suspect that my companions would have been a little non-plussed by that. As it was I got a few strange looks from Donald over my choice of raw fish. He's a strange one, very inhibited and conservative which wouldn't be so bad if he didn't try pushing his world view on others. When I got to my bed I had no trouble dropping off.

Saturday

Today started out fairly normally , until I flooded the kitchen that was. Water was everywhere. Including through my cutlery and cupboards. So everything has had to be rewashed, and the cupboards washed out with bleach, and so-forth. The draws are still wet, I'm hoping they will be dry enough to restock before bed. I really don't want to leave everything out while I'm at the conference. I was planning on listing this blog in the various blog directories around the net today. I guess that will just have to wait. I did register with Globe of Blogs and Blogwise. There wasn't any special reason for picking them to be first, that's just how it happened. Still have to pack, but my heart really isn't in it. Sure I'll get it done before bed, but <shrug> Might write later if I get a chance. Otherwise I'm not sure when I'll next have an opportunity.

Chardonnay

Tired

It's been a long day at work, so there's not much extra-mural stuff to report. I feel pretty tired & reading this before posting I can see I'm not my normal chatty self. Today was Campbell's last day. He kept busy finishing off open issues until the end of the day. It was a sad occasion for him, but he kept sounding positive. We had a few drinks to say goodbye to him. And so it goes. My day was kept busy with administration, getting ready for the conference (making sure I have everything I need), and a meeting to discuss the development projects plan for the rest of the year. Doesn't sound like much, but I'm getting worn out by it. I'll be so glad when it's over and I can do some programming. Sean's doing a sheet that will take 3 or 4 days of solid coding. I'd love to be doing that one. If I wasn't so pre-occupied with the conference I'd probably still have given it to him, but it would have been so nice to have had the option.

For the first time in 7 years

In 1998 I got glandular fever. Before I realised I had it, I had three glasses of chardonnay after work one night. With the illness, my liver couldn't tolerate alcohol & I reacted very badly "Throwing up in the gutter" is how I usually describe it. After I got well, my body remembered the incident and if I as much as held the stuff to my nose I felt ill. So I've been avoiding it ever since. Tonight I had a glass of wine. It was nice. I looked at the bottle & saw it was chardonnay. This means I've finally got over the reaction. It's so nice to have the choice back in my life.

Administration

I had a brief play with webmin tonight. Downloaded it & installed it on a machine inside the firewall. Had a brief play. Not enough study to really judge, but it could be interesting.

Google Sitesearch and more cache

Interesting night struggling with a few options. Well, probably a boring night struggling with a few options, but it kept me amused.

Google Search

I've been playing with the Google Adsense version of their website searching tool. I've seen them all over the web, you get a Google search box on your page and have the choice of searching the current site, or the whole web. The search in PHP-Nuke isn't great, so even before I signed up for Adsense I thought it would be good to incorporate Google search, it wasn't a high priority, but it was there. Then when I signed up for the ad program I discovered that many of these search boxes are actually part of the Adsense program, so webmasters that employ them get something back if someone searches from their site and then selects an advertisement. Wahoo. Count me in. So far I've made a small number of cents in a single click through from my sites. That's right, one click through. Maybe if I put the search boxes up, I'll get people using G to search from my site, and I'll get a second person clicking an ad. Maybe one day I'll actually get my cents earned up into the double digits. Seriously, I wasn't even expecting a single click yet. I'm surprised I got that. Early days yet. If I'm not getting close to having my costs covered by September, then I'll worry. So, I've tried it out, configured it to my taste and put a search box into the page header of the bad.co.nz pages. Another interesting thing is that while I'm not allowed to put Google Ads on a 404 page, I am allowed to put their search box there. <smile>

More on Google Cache

I went back to have another look at the weird search result I mentioned the other day. To recap, someone had got to an error page on 168.co.nz by following a Chinese language link from Google search. So just out of interest I went back tonight & searched Google for this domain. I thought I might find a dozen or so old pages. Wrong. It said "Results 1 - 20 of about 7,010 from 168.co.nz". What have I stumbled on here, an abandoned portal? Then I looked again. This wasn't my Domain. LOL. So I tried my domain 168.net.nz. This was much more believable. 27 pages. I wouldn't have the luck to pick up something potentially that valuable. The content is all (apparently) Chinese. I couldn't duplicate the content, but I wonder is it ethical for me to put up pages of the same name? Oh well, that's a problem for another day.

LOL Left hand, right hand.

Before publishing this entry, I just went to check for typos it using the spell check tool on the Blogspot authors page. It complained that Google wasn't a recognised word. Ha! Blogspot AKA Blogger is owned by Google! Google, Adsense and probably one or two other words I've used are trademarks of Google.com.

Work - Phew

Well I got my presentation slides done ... almost. For the GL presentation I'd previously joined Leonie's slides with mine to make a joint presentation & sent it off to her to see what she thought, she decided that the combined set was far too long & chose to just use my slides. So I cleaned them up, reformatted for the conference and asked her to reword one of them that I wasn't happy with & that was done. David was sick today. I knew that I needed his input for the joint presentation, but couldn't get it. I tried emailing his CompuServe.com account, but mistyped it as "compuserv" (no 'E'). Well, what do you know? There's a sleazy typo-squatter that owns that domain name and likes reading other people's mail. I'll break my rule about giving clickable links. While I was waiting for David to not receive the email, I worked on the third presentation, the one on sales order changes. I got it done, and was just sitting back at my desk; hands on head when David arrived. He decided he liked my slides & has taken them to do a couple of changes to his bit. He'll forward them on to Chris for inclusion in the conference CD-ROM. So all that was left for me to do was to forward the other two to Chris. Typically, I sent him the wrong version of the GL presentation :(. Luckily I was the one that spotted the mistake & got the real version off. Left work at 5 with a clear conscience. Yeehaa!!!!!!!!

Posting by email?

I found this option on blogspot to publish to the blog by email.

Inveterate fiddler with technology that I am, I just had to try it.

Here's a quote that appeared in my in box, so at least I have a little content.

"We must practice the skill of listening instead of speaking, of acknowledging and celebrating difference instead of recoiling from it, of putting ourselves, as squarely as we can, into the experience of others." -- Andre Carothers, Writer and organizational consultant

--

(Added later) Well that was ugly. I think I'll avoid posting by email for now

Working ... Working ... Working

Day Job

I'm feeling disorientated at work this week. The week before last we had consultants and implementors from our international branches in town for a conference. My regular routine was shot as I had to do a couple of presentations and sit in on a few sessions. I expected that. What I didn't expect was that I'd end up sitting in on several extra sessions and be asked during the week to present on a technological "futures" idea for our premier product. That plus my boss was supposed to phone & warn me if a preceeding session was running over time. He often managed to do that. The one time I was really quite annoyed was when I came in from home on the Saturday for my last presentation to find that the previous session was only just getting under way.

Then we have a customer conference coming up next week. So again, more prep. I've been scheduled for 3 presentations, more than any other developer. But I think I'm on-time for getting them done in time. Need to have my slides in by Thursday so they can go on the CD-ROM for the delegates, but I can do it.

Complicating the week, David, the CTO, has come down from the UK for the user conference & his six-monthly catchup with his staff. First thing Monday the team leaders were summoned into the conference room & he announced that he had decided to step down as boss of the software team & concentrate on being CTO for the hardware business. A new "MIS" CTO has been appointed and my boss' position has been disestablished.

So, it's David running around doing the David things, Campbell running around doing the Campbell things, and at the end of the week they both stop being my bosses. I keep thinking about a portion of Jonathon Dimbleby's The Last Governor where towards the time of Hong Kong's hand-over to China when the Chinese had made it clear that new laws passed by the British administration would not carry on, when relationships between the British & the Chinese were at a low ebb, Chris Patton continued with "business as usual" and was hurt that increasingly the Hong Kong Chinese turned towards the mainland. The same mainland that was about to resume control of their island. I feel a bit like those HK Chinese civil servants who had to go through the motions of supporting their outgoing boss while knowing that the real future lies with the new boss.

And the home business?

Nothing much really. Too cabbaged by the day job to be creative. I did sign-up for Amazon's affiliate program though. The way I read, I might as well build links to their books

Relaxation, then?

Ha! Blogging. In a quiet moment I did press the see next blog link on my blog before. It took me to a blog by someone calling herself Falsafah. Her site says "Falsafah means the love and pursuit of wisdom and knowledge. Serenity ; Calmness." I like that sentiment. Good luck with the job search Falsafah.

And that's all from me tonight.

Getting Serious About The Web

Domain Portfolio

I've built up a portfolio of "investment" domain names I've "banked". OK, it isn't much of an investment, because all I'm doing is sitting on them & paying renewal fees. The idea was to turn them into real sites, and do a little business, maybe use them for information and make a little of advertising, in a couple of cases it was just for support of a cause. Some I'm getting serious about turning into domains, as for the rest I've though about my exit strategy.

The idea I've come up with is rather than just abandoning them, or trying to sell a raw name, is to to make them into real "mini-domains". Useful content, a bit of traffic. Then sell them on.

Finding Hosting

So I've experimented with finding some hosting. Now that was a job and a half. There's thousands of little resellers out there all trying to make themselves look like real hosting companies. Complicating the issue I needed to host multiple domains.

After a few nights of staring at hosting offers until I went crosseyed I gave up. I found an interesting site at forums.devshed.com I placed a description of the type of hosting I needed. The little resellers clustered around and placed answers to my queries. This whittled it down to about 20 replies. I then checked each of them against my stated requirements. Most of them were dreamers. They had non-functioning sites, didn't offer all the features I said I needed, or their terms and conditions disallowed what I said I wanted the hosting for. This got it down to a very few sites; then I used "feelings" this got be down to two I felt comfortable about. Eventually I made my decision.

I'm not associated with devshed, just a happy customer of their free service.

Domains

I've started shifting the domains. It's slow work, but each time I do one, it gets easier.

Some little funnies have popped up

• I got a google hit on my main domain for the search term "Albanian Musak." Totally blank look from me, how on earth does my little domain about pacific rats get a hit like that. Google cache to the rescue. I had a random quote dongle on the page, turns out that when the google spider came through, the quote it got served contained exactly that phrase. Won't happen again, I've put rat related quotes in the file it uses. There's a small irony there, "Kiore" is also the name of a town in Albania.
• I also found a 404 on 168.net.nz. When I went to look at the referring page it was Google ('natch), but in Chinese. I asked a Chinese co-worker. He said the search was about AUT, and so was the page in the google cache. He said the page was unusual. It was written using simplified chinese characters, but the wording suggested that the person writing was more at home with traditional Chinese. We then had a conversation about how it's just a transliteration (or to coin a word, transpictoration) and how a simple search/replace could do someting like this. Programmers, huh?

Missed opportunity

I got caught up with some stuff at work today & clean forgot that the local Linux users group had its meeting tonight. I finally remembered at around 6:50 when I was in Broadway standing at the bus stop opposite 277 with 4 supermarket bags of shopping. At the time I was annoyed at myself, I have an interest in virtual servers, the subject of the talk, but I also realised that by the time the perishables were in the fridge and I'd eaten it would be too late to get there. Luckily I've since realised that the virtual servers being talked about are the cluster style, joining many machines into a super computer, not the partition one machine into several virtual slices. Still would have liked to have gone, but never mind.

Ellipsis

Quite a while has elapsed

I'm living in Epsom North, been here 8 months. Had one brief relationship. Right now I'm not meeting anyone, but I'm not really looking either. I don't know, it all seems too hard. I guess I'm settling in well to the single life.

I'm back playing bridge again, this time at the Royle Epsom bridge club. LOL. Getting back to how I used to be before the November 12th event.

Dad

Dad's fading, Mum's soldiering on. There's been a few scares with Dad's health. I don't like to think about it, but I have to accept that one day not too far off he won't be with us. I can't remember when I last said I loved him. Weird. I'm 47 and I don't know if my Dad knows how I feel. I remember a few years back when I gave him a hug and he didn't know how to react.

Michael's coming back from Australia for a week's holiday in a couple of weeks. He'll be staying with Mum & Dad. I don't know if he'll be coming over for their 50th in December.

I'm backdating this a few days because I wanted to set the scene for a couple of recent pages.

A Google Operating System?

I wrote this article in 2005 as part of a Slash Dot discussion "Google Planning Web Browser? ", I've decided to add it in here as part of consolidating significant writings I've done in other forums and have added it here in October 2008. From the 2008 perspective we know that Google did, in fact release their own browser.

The original discussion's header was"John Dvorak has just posted a very interesting, albeit hypothetical, analysis of Google's future directions. Citing the 'unusual' hires of Rob Pike (from Bell labs), Ben Goodger, and Darin Fisher (both from Mozilla) and the acquisition of the gbrowser.com domain, Dvorak speculates that a Firefox based Google browser and Google-OS may soon be coming to a cluster near you."

Rob Pike was the principle author of the Plan-9 operating system and is a world expert on distributed operating systems

---

Let's assume Google is acting rationally

They might want Rob Pike for other reasons, several have been suggested elsewhere in this discussion.

On the other hand, they may actually want him to develop an operating system. That is one of the things he's done before, and one of the things he's well known for.

Why on earth should Google want to develop a new (or highly modified) operating system? What strengths would Dr Pike bring to that project?

Google have a very large number of servers. They won't reveal how many they have, but admit to more than 10,000 servers [baltimoresun.com], another another estimate [tnl.net] suggests between 31 and 158 thousand servers. That's a lot of computing power. Presumably the people at Google are highly interested in getting as much work out of this hardware as they possibly can.

Enter Dr Pike. He's well known for Plan 9 [lucent.com] "The Plan 9 system is based on the concept of distributed computing in a networked, client-server environment. The set of resources available to applications is transparently made accessible everywhere in the distributed system, so that it is irrelevant where the applications are actually running."

I have seen passing references [screamingelectron.org] that Plan 9 is strong on clustering and load balancing. Unfortunately I can't get Google to give me a good citation, so this may be a myth.

Google have a large number of computers, and have hired an expert on writing distributed operating systems. I feel it's likely that they want him to improve the operating environment of their servers, or possibly of the Google appliances they sell.

It doesn't take much thought to realise that Google would be well served by a stripped down operating system that supports the work they do highly efficiently, and supports non-core activities relatively poorly, or even not at all.

OK, let's assume that they are writing an OS for their own internal use. An OS that makes their servers carry out the core business of their company more efficiently. Why should they either sell or give away that operating system?

Spidering, organising, searching, and delivering information is what Google does. Why should they let their competition have access to the tool that lets their 10,000-158,000 computers do their core business better?

Not many facts to back it up in any depth, but my best guess is that whatever it is that Rob Pike does for Google won't be released for a long time, if ever.

Kaukapakapa to Wellsford

Getting going

In the morning I wanted to get going, but neither the custodian nor the owners were anywhere to be seen, so I loaded up the bike and sat down to have a cigarette and a coffee. While I was doing that the owner turned up and I was able to settle my bill.

The muscles are a bit sore, but soon loosened up.

Nightmare on wheels

Ourshop describes the road to Wellsford as "Wellsford, Provincial Highway 16 meanders its way to Helensville." and helpfully adds "Watch out for the logging trucks using this stretch of road." Add monster hills and killer heat to that description and it's pretty good. Yesterday was overcast and while cycling could never be described as a pleasure at my level of fitness, at least it wasn't too bad. Today I was bleeding sweat and needed lots of breaks, but I decided that even when I needed an extra break I'd keep going. 5 km per hour isn't getting me anywhere fast, but at least it's getting me somewhere. Rabbit, tortoise, that kind of thing. About the 5th time I saw her, a policewoman that had been patrolling the road stopped her car and asked me if I was OK. I assured her I was & had plenty of water. I think she was afraid I was near to collapse.

On the other hand, I did allow myself my scheduled breaks. Originally the idea was ride for 90 minutes and then rest for 10. I decided that this was too much, so revised it to ride / walk for 60 minutes then rest for 20, but every time I was due for a rest I kept going until I found a place with shade and somewhere to sit or lie, so probably closer to 70 minutes.

About half an hour out of Wellsford a very nice young lady in the front paddock of her farm said she'd seen me coming in the distance and that I looked completely knackered. She asked if I'd like a dip in their pool. I would have loved to, but as I said to her, if I stopped I didn't think I'd have the strength to get going again. And so I got to Wellsford, turned left to get onto State Highway 1 and headed north. Wellsford is built on a hill and at the top of the hill I looked out over the countryside and decided that although it was only 3 PM I really didn't want to go any further today. There was accommodation up that end of town, but I thought about a tidy little motel I'd see at the end of highway 16, so I turned around and went back.

Rest

This was the right move. I was in a reasonably modern motel, with friendly host and after a swim in their pool and a hot shower I walked down to the shops for some fruit for tomorrow, then to the local bistro bar for a take-away pizza.

Again I slept well

It seemed like a good idea

Editorial note: This posting and the next few days are a reconstruction after the event, I had no net access during this time.

I Really don't want to do this

It all seemed so simple when I went to bed last night. The bike was all loaded, all I had to do was take the drink bottles out of the freezer, put them in the panniers; take the unfrozen bottle out of the fridge and put it on the drink clip then leave.

The reality was different. I kept finding all types of things that I "must do before leaving". I'm planning to ride 120 km, when the longest strip I've ever done before is 30 km, and that only a few times while I was seeing Maria.

Eventually at around 11 AM I decided it was now or never; so it was on the bike, out the driveway and up to the end of the street. Up to now I hadn't made up my mind whoever to take the shorter, but busier State Highway 1 route, or highway 16. I now needed to turn either left or right. I stopped and thought. Eventually I turned left. Still not completely committed, but I was now heading towards highway 16.

Moving Backwards

Before setting out I'd found a list of NZ waypoints including Uretiti at Uniquely NZ. I had set my GPS to Uretiti and as I cycled along it was telling me something I already knew intellectually; I was actually getting further away from my target. The psychological impact of seeing this while on a ride that was to be 4 times as long as my previous longest was pretty devastating.

So it was down Balmoral Rd to Great North Rd, then to Point Chevalier and up the cycle way alongside the motorway. I had my first ride at Henderson and pumped my tyres up as hard as I could. Then after 10 minutes I was moving again. Lunch was chicken and chips from the fish and chip shop in Kumeu and back on the road again. By now the kilometres on the GPS were ticking down and I just kept riding along. Another brief break at Helensville and back on the road again.

Night 1 Kaukapakapa

Around 5 PM I rode into Kaukapakapa, pretty exhausted, so I decided I needed to find a place to sleep soon. The only place to sleep there seems to be the local pub. Problem, there was a sign on the door saying they were closed for the public holidays! I wandered around the back and found the live-in custodian. She confirmed that they were closed, but seeing how tired I was took pity on me and opened a room for me. "I'll let the owner know and you can pay in the morning" she said. How trusting. The room was basic and dinner was a couple of pies & sandwiches from the Caltex station, but it was all I needed. Sleep came easily.