tin_the_fatty weblog

Mother died again a bit over an hour ago. Since the only thing I have changed on it is to install WordPress on it and tried to migrate my weblog over, the new software must be the cause of the problem. I am therefore shutting down WP for the time being and see how it [...]

[Read more →]

Over 365 days of uptime, mother just suffered a kernel panic and died. The fine supporting staff at KDDI reset the computer for me, and mother came up sync’ed the soft RAID and went back to normal.
I have yet to figure out how to conduct a proper postmortem for OpenBSD, as both the hardware and [...]

[Read more →]

I realized that I forgot to bring my China Travel Permit in Sheung Shui, so I couldn’t go to Siu Hing with the Lady and her colleagues. Oh well a free weekend. Jasper’s OFA at home with a fever anyway.

[Read more →]

Just got them. Despite not happy at all (too many loose ends, not enough research, and the data raised wasn’t entirely conclusive) with my big term paper for Qing History, obviously the professor liked it enough to give me a very good grade. It is also possible that the coursemates didn’t do too well, pulling [...]

[Read more →]

Cool way to switch virtual desktops. Watch the video.

[Read more →]

The media try to deconstruct the event. I tend to think this is one-off and trying to put a social meaning behind it is going down the wrong track.
Link.
(Unverified) here or here for what Alvin said on Radio.

[Read more →]

From here.

[Read more →]

I am starting to think about what photographic equipment to bring for the upcoming euro trip.
My Nikon D70 DSLR with the excellent kit lens and my 50/1.4 plus my Fuji F11 should be perfectly adequate. Since I want to be travelling light and won’t be taking my laptop with me, I’d have to pick up [...]

[Read more →]

Attached please find the balance payment voucher for your and your son’s perusal.

Dear Maisie,
Thank you. Jasper is 3 and a half and is only starting to learn to read. I am sure he’ll find the balance payment voucher very interesting.

[Read more →]

Live. And they won. The Europeans have a real sense of humour.

[Read more →]

Spirit and Opportunity.

[Read more →]

Jasper’s toy. Present from his grandpa. Put together by his dad.

[Read more →]

I am somewhat surprised that Jasper is perfectly capable of playing a good game of Jenga. He loses most of the time and he could be a bad loser, but I am sure he’ll in time improve.

[Read more →]

I finally backed up all my stuff on the Ubantu Linux workstation onto DVDs, then wiped the two harddisks and install Nexenta OpenSolaris. The first PATA HD was used as the system HD, and the SATA HD was used as a ZFS volume. There are still rough edges in this Alpha 4 version. Disk management [...]

[Read more →]

I can’t help but think that we are going to be seeing another big event in Sony’s long demise.
For the last few years Sony was pretty much saved by Sony Computer Entertainment for the highly successful Playstation and Playstation 2, while pretty much everything else it did was mediocre or even downright awful. And let’s [...]

[Read more →]

The new Apple MacBooks are here and they are awesome.
After getting the iMac, I am even more convinced that the laptop computer is the perfect form factor for a personal computer. I want to be able to jot down notes while I am reading on the sofa or on the dinning table or in the [...]

[Read more →]

Typhoon signal #3, and all kindergartens are closed. Jasper’s nursery however is still open (for the benefit of the working parents!), althou attendence is optional for the day.
I am happy to cooperate with the hard-working teachers to make their life easier, so Jasper is taking the day off.

[Read more →]

From the New Scientist.
Well not quite. It’s the Cavendish bananas. My favourite. It would be a real bummer.

[Read more →]

I have been slowly dumping my older DV tapes into iMovieHD over the weekend (Yah! Now that I finally have the equipment to handle video editing. The 667MHz TiBook with an external HD could do it, barely, but it wasn’t fun at all), and I immediately feel the pressure of dataglut.
Half an hour of DV [...]

[Read more →]

I read about an interview in a local weekly magazine of Prof Faure from sf’s blog, and was going to check it out from the local library, but there is no need.
Going to Prof Faure’s lecture is quite an experience. He totally smashes all the “facts” you think you knew. You suddenly get a feeling [...]

[Read more →]