Crowd Surfing Echidnas

Setting up Archlinux on my Framework 16 laptop - Getting to First Boot

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

After assembling the laptop it is time to start installing Archlinux.

My goal is to run the laptop with a fully encrypted disk via cryptsetup.

Important References

Framework 16 Support is your jumping off point for their documentation on assembling your DIY laptop and installing Linux.
Archlinux Installation Guide.
NVMe solid state drives in the Archlinux Wiki.
Lena Fuhrimann’s guide for installing Archlinux on UEFI with full disk encryption.

Firmware Settings

The first time you power on, you should end up in the BIOS/Boot Manager/Firmware or whatever you want to call it. If not, try tapping F2 repeatedly as it powers up.

Reading Habits of 2024

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This year I read a total of 89 books this year! The highest since I started keeping track in 2014. It was the 16 audiobooks that put me over the top – five more than any other year. 71 ebooks is only one short of the max in any given year.

Finishing off the remaining fifteen books in the Armand Gamache series I started last year I’ll admit occupied most of my reading time for the first three and a half months of 2024 (3.75 star rating from me for the series so far).

Mini-Movie Reviews and Black List Picks For 2024

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s my mini-movie reviews that I’ve posted in various places in 2024. Some minor spoilers.

Joker: Folie à Deux

It is different to the first movie. It’s largely – I wouldn’t call it a courtroom drama – but spends a fair amount of time on his trial for the murders from the first movie. I would say it doesn’t have the momentum and tension that the first movie did. It’s hard to make a boldly original sequel to a boldly original movie. The musical aspect could have pushed it there, or leaning a little more into the shared psychosis aspects as per the movie’s title, but I don’t think they pulled it off.

Postgresql With Case-Insensitive Text

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I got put off using CITEXT by the tip at the top of the documentation suggesting to use a non-deterministic collation instead. So I did for a small project.

After a bit of faffing about, I came up with using two collations, one insensitive and one sensitive:

CREATE COLLATION en_us_ci (PROVIDER = icu, LOCALE = 'en-US-u-ks-level2', DETERMINISTIC = FALSE);

CREATE COLLATION en_us_cs (PROVIDER = icu, LOCALE = 'en-US-u-ks-level2', DETERMINISTIC = TRUE);

Then created a domain to make it easy to use the case insensitive version:

Reading Habits of 2023

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

So an interesting thing happened with my star ratings this year, but before we go there, lets look at some of the highlights of what I’ve read this past year.

In the non-fiction category was a memoir by Andrew Leland called The Country of the Blind. It follows his grappling with slowly losing his sight over a few decades due to retinitis pigmentosa. Along the way he covers a bit of history of how blindness has been treated in the USA.

The Black List

Mon, 18 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I enjoy reading The Black List which is an annual posting of favoured unproduced screenplays based on a survey of Hollywood film industry executives.

Films like Slumdog Millionaire, Argo, The King’s Speech and Passengers are movies that have appeared in a Black List and gone on to be produced.

From these, I have listed the ones from the last few years that have appealed to me in some way. From what I’ve picked it looks like those involving time travel, aliens, or Daniel Radcliffe tickle me. Perhaps next year they’ll combine all three! What appeals to you?

Reading Habits of the Last Few Years

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

So I’m several years overdue on blog posts of my riveting reading habits, but to make up for it, I have graphs!

My reading rate seems to have gone down. This is peculiar given with COVID lockdowns in Melbourne I would have thought I would have read more books in 2020 and 2021. However I seem to have gone from between 60 to 70 books read, to around 50 for the last few years.

Mini Movie Reviews

Sun, 15 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Over the years I’ve posted various brief movie reviews on social media. Decided to trawl back through and collect the bulk of them for my own amusement. Starting at the most recent.

Recently watched The Menu, a treatise on perfect being the enemy of good and the forces both internal and external that drive you there. Set in the world of haute cuisine with lavish servings of pretentiousness and homicide, I’ll never hear the word degustation again without a shiver running up my occipital.

Reading Habits of 2017

Sat, 27 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The annual blog post of my reading stats for the year.

I read 65 books in 2017 which is a bit more than last year. A total of 21,650 pages, a respectable 2,672 over last year. This works out to 59 pages per day, or a book every five and a half days on average.

Of the 65 books, I read 63 in ebook format and two were physical books. I also listened to Artemis as an audiobook which isn’t counted above. I listen to a few audiobooks a year, but they are usually books I have already read previously so I don’t track them. In this case, the expert narration by Rosario Dawson made ‘reading’ for the first time as an audiobook a no-brainer.

Reading Habits of 2016

Fri, 17 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

So one year I’ll find something else to blog about, but in the meantime here’s my reading stats for 2016.

I’d read about 72 books in each of the previous two years, but only read 61 in 2016, which is a marked drop. A measly 19,278 pages which works out to 53 pages per day, or a book every 6 days on average. This is a drop from the previous year’s 57 pages per day or a book every 5 days, so I’ve perhaps not slowed down that much it seems.

Are You There?

Sat, 03 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

So I’ve got a new little guy sitting on top of my monitor.

(Click on any image to see a larger version.)

It is an ultrasonic distance sensor that I use as a presence sensor to tell the computer when I’m in front of it or not.

This is connected to a LeoStick to read the distance and notify the computer when the threshold changes from “present” to “away” or back.

Adventures in Bariatric Surgery

Wed, 24 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

So nine weeks ago I had a Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass. Thought it might be worth writing a bit about the experience and a few of the things I would have done in preparation knowing what I know now.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. This article is opinion from a lay person. Advice here may or may not work for you.

The story so far: A bit over four years ago I had a Lapband installed. It had the attraction of being reversible whereas the bypass is permanent. While it was effective and I lost about thirty kilograms, after four years weight loss had completely stalled and I started having other issues with it – mainly reflux and heartburn. It turns out in the four years since I got my lapband the prevailing wisdom on the subject has decided lapbands generally last about four years then start having problems, and help the recipient loses about thirty kilograms, but no more. Nice to be inside the curve I guess.

Unreasonable People

Sun, 10 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Listening to Kate Taylor tell stories this morning about how she founded The 2H Project reminded me of something George Bernard Shaw wrote:

The reasonable person adapts themself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to themself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable person.^*

I am glad there are unreasonable people like Kate in this world.

^* Paraphrased to be gender neutral.

Reading Habits of 2015

Sun, 03 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

So 2015 was very similar to 2014 in terms of book reading, which clocked in at 72 books and a total of 20,909 pages for the year. Or 57 pages per day, or a book every a book every 5 days on average.

There was only one book I gave up on (it was an early novel from an author I usually enjoy, so that was unusual). My average rating was 2.94, against a Goodreads average of 3.89 for the same set of books. Last year my average was 2.79 so perhaps I am getting a bit kinder in my ratings.

Reading Habits of 2014

Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

In 2014 I read 72 books, a total of 20,572 pages for the year. That works out to about 56 pages a day, or a book every 5 days on average. That’s a 14% increase over the previous year, so I’m definitely becoming more of a shut-in, if there was ever any doubt.

This does not include four books that I didn’t finish as I found them not to my taste, or two audio books I listened to this year.

My Sit/Stand Desk

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been interested in having a sit/stand desk in my home office for quite some time. There have been lots of articles in the last few years about the health risks of sitting at a desk all day, and it is something I’ve wanted to put in place for quite some time.

I had a modified desk with a three tonne hydraulic automotive jack under it for a while which made one thing clear. You have to be able to adjust the height very easily, with little fuss, or you wont adjust as often as you would like. To that end, a motorised desk was clearly the order of the day.

Reading Habits of 2013

Sat, 04 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So I’ve been tracking the books I’ve been reading (via GoodReads) for the last year (started mid-January). In 2013 I read 52 books, or a total of 17,213 pages in around 341 days. That works out to about 50 pages a day, or a book every 6.5 days on average. (Mind you, those numbers are a little high as there are two books in that list I know I wasn’t enjoying enough to finish.)

The Cat Terrarium

Fri, 05 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

In the past our cats have had free access to roam the outdoors. It seems they abused this privilege though, to the distress of a couple of our neighbours who were either allergic or whose garden became a bird hunting ground. So as responsible pet owners we decided we needed to keep the cats contained to our property while still giving them an area outdoors to bounce around in.

After a bit of consideration we decided to cordon off the narrow part of the yard off the laundry door and up the side of the house as “the cat run.”

By Any Other Name...

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

My Aunt and Uncle recently moved from Papua New Guinea to Vanuatu, and are learning Bislama, the local pidgin.

Pidgins can sometimes be a bit awkward, requiring entire phrases to get across an idea.

In Bislama, to mention a cave you would say, “hol long ston.” The literal translation more or less being, “Hole in stone.”

It can lead to some eccentric and terribly charming expressions though. A violin is a, “wan smol box blong white man, oli scratchem beli I singout gudfala,” and my personal favourite, a helicopter is a, “mixmaster blong Jesus Christ.”

Discovery of the Week: The Awesome Foundation

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Last month I attended Ignite Melbourne where one of the speakers, Ross Hill talked about The Awesome Foundation.

The Awesome Foundation has about twenty chapters around the world, each of which provide monthly $1,000 grants to a someone in order to do something awesome.

There is a Melbourne chapter. Previous grant recipients include:

A filmmaker making a documentary about the Tour de Timor bike race.
The Melbourne Winter Warmth project that provides basic needs for the homeless.

Picture of the day: Best Twitter Bot Ever

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Via John Myles White.

Can you spare a dollar?

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday there was a news story about a man who committed a bank robbery for only one dollar.

In North Carolina, on the morning of June 9th, James Verone walked into a bank and handed the teller a note that read, “This is a bank robbery. Please only give me one dollar.” Once given his meagre loot, he said, “I’ll be sitting right over there in the chair waiting for the police.”

A Slice of π

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

In honour of today (March 14) being Pi Day, a musical interpretation of Pi to 31 decimal places by Michael John Blake:

And if you think you can do better, head over to http://pi.highsign.de/ and make your own composition!

Pi, represented by the Greek letter π, is of course the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and is also the ratio of a circle’s area to the square of its radius. Ever so versatile, the number π is used in all kinds of maths. Geometry and trigonometry obviously, but also calculus, physics, statistical probability and even chaos theory.

My Life With Pets — Cats, Birds and Bibs

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

One of our cats has a bib-like cloth attached to his collar these days to stop him catching birds. It is suppose to interfere with his stalking and so far it's worked.

The other cats in the neighbourhood do point at him and laugh and call him a kitteh [sic], but he’s reaped his own reward as far as I’m concerned as he kept bringing birds home and hiding them in the house…

¿Qué?

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I’ll never forget the time my brother-in-law was telling me about the movie, Like Water for Chocolate. In trying to sound worldly and hip, he enthused, “I love French films!”

If you’ve ever really used Google in anger, you’ve no doubt come across search hits in a foreign language, and been offered a link to read a translated version. Google Translate is a wonderful service, but they recently added even more awesome with the ability to translate Latin!

My Life With Pets — Tag Teamed

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

If Pavlov used a Labrador I think his experiments are void.

Well the cats are still at it. Last night Michelle was dishing up dinner and turned her back for a second and one of the cats nipped up onto the bench and tried to take off with a chicken drumstick.

It turned out to be a bit too heavy and while trying to dodge various objects being thrown at him he dropped it onto the floor, where of course Toby instantly vacuumed it up. (Toby is actually very well behaved – we’ve left food out on the coffee table and he knows not to touch it – but once it hits the floor it’s his domain.)

My Life With Pets — Labrador Retriever (noun): A Stomach On Four Legs

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend.
Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
— Groucho Marx

We have a three year old Labrador named Tobius or “Toby” for short. He was supposedly the runt of the litter, but turned out to be a big black doofus with an attention span about as wide as the space between his eyeballs.

He is not especially good at playing fetch. He'll be running along after the ball and something will divert his attention --- one sharp left later he's off rolling in God knows what and you're the one fetching the ball. About the only time he's any good at fetch is if we play it in the house, up and down the hallway.

So of course, Toby swallowed a ball a few weeks ago. It was one of those small rubber super-balls that I’m continuously telling my daughter not to play with or the dog will eat it which, sure enough, is what happened. She was bouncing it up and down the hall, there was a flash of black and a scream of, “No Toby!” and the ball was breakfast.

My Life With Pets — Bedtime Blitz

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

“A cat by any other name is still a scheming little fur ball that craps behind the couch.”
— Unknown

The two new cats we’ve got are incorrigible. Despite our best efforts to date they will still go on the kitchen benches whenever they can get away with it. Every other cat we’ve had we’ve been able to train to stay off the benches, but not these two.

They will also steal any food that is left unattended for even twenty seconds. The little buggers have gotten into meat that was left out to defrost (in the sink with a heavy glass breadboard over the top to keep them away, mind you) and even steal bread left out on the bench.

USB in a Box

Thu, 13 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I’m happy to say the number of gadgets I own has been growing a bit unmanageable in the last few years, in particular the number that need USB either for power, communications or both. The downside is the number of cables and other debris that gets strewn around my desk. So I made a USB box to tidy it all up:

Internally it has two powered USB hubs, one of which is connected to the computer, the other is just for use as a power supply (for the GPS and battery charger, which don’t need to talk to the computer).

Will you be one of the 7% that reads this rant?

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of days ago, a couple of friends put the following on their status on Facebook:

People need to understand that children with special needs are not sick. They are not searching for a cure, just acceptance. This week is for special needs education. 93% percent of the people will not copy and paste this. Will you be part of the seven percent that will and will you leave it on your wall for at least an hour?

To-Whit / To-Whoo: One Year of Microblogging in Review

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Milen Dimov,
Used with permission ’Twas a year ago today that I started using Twitter and Facebook. I kicked it off with a test message to see if I got my twitter missives automatically being sent to Facebook properly. Hardly an auspicious start. I was not an early adopter of social networking tech, and at first blush, you can’t blame me. Do I really want to read 140 character messages of what people had for breakfast and their progress on the house work? Fortunately I found it wasn’t all asinine ephemera.

All creatures great and small

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Happy New Year everyone.

Hard to believe we are already over a week into the New Year and so much has happened already.

Many of you would have heard about our cat Murray, but for those who haven’t, I am retelling the story here.

Evan and I got Murray as a four-year-old cat from the animal shelter. We had lost a cat not long before and were wanting a second cat to complement our female tortoiseshell CD, but didn’t want to have to deal with a kitten all over again.

In Memory of Murray

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve already blogged about a cat named Murray so for today, a simple note to observe that Murray is no longer with us. From his unexpected reappearance in late August, we are grateful to have had the opportunity to share another four months of life with him before arthritis and other maladies of old age finally caught up to him.

We spent our last evening together the same way we spent our first: lying on the couch watching movies with him asleep, purring away on my chest.

Wallpaper & System Info Management Script

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been working on my little wallpaper management bash shell script that handles changing wallpapers on my desktop. The image to the right shows the system information that is displayed down the right edge of my screen. From the top you have:

Click for larger view

Local weather forecast for the next four days.
The current and next calendar months.
List of the last twelve incoming phone calls.

Playing Santa

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Got roped into playing Santa again this year. At this rate I’m gonna have to buy my own suit!

“Sorry I’m late, one of the reindeer had a flat…”

“Can I get a ‘Hello Santa’?”

If I do this again next year I think I’ll have to work on some new material. I think the gag about always saying three “Ho, ho, ho’s” ‘cause if you only yell out one they come and arrest you made some of the parents nervous…

Aiko Gateway Build Day #1

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Follow the link below to see my photos from the Aiko Gateway Build Day #1:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44717797@N06/sets/72157622810971412/detail/

Wikipedia really does have a page for just about everything.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Having lived in Papua New Guinea twice while growing up, I have a certain fondness for the language Tok Pisin (to you Inglis speakers, just pronounce it the same as “pidgeon”). I can’t really speak much of it, but I can understand a fair bit when my Dad gets started (incidentally, he went back to PNG for a visit in June, and after 30 years he could still hold his own when talking with the locals).

The Petting Problem

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Inspired by projects such as the tweeting cat door and CATaLOG [sic] I’m wanting to add some form of automated access control to our pet door to control who can go in and out, when.

The Players

We currently have three cats, one dog and one pet door. Note: Click on any picture to see a larger view.

The Mischievous Mutt

Toby, our two year old Labrador needs access to the backyard anytime, day or night for access to his food, water and other amenities.

Mums are psychic

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I was having a serious discussion with my son the other day, finding out what had happened in a situation that had been reported to me by his older sister. At the end and after said son had left the room, my husband turned to me and asked, “What other special powers do you have?”

My son had come in protesting his innocence in a situation in which there were no witnesses bar himself. I persisted with a line of questioning that would put police interrogators and cross-examining lawyers to shame and my son succumbed and admitted his guilt. Hence the query from my husband. Had to think about that for a while and finally figured it out. However, I am not going to tell you how. If you are a mum, you’ll understand, if you’re not, I’m not going to give away a trade secret.

Feed da Birds

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Feeding the birds at Grant’s Picnic Ground.

View Larger Map

Picture of the day: Copy, Paste

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Do you have a cat named Murray?

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Growing up, I was a fan of the Footrot Flats comic strip written by Murray Ball. It detailed the toils and tribulations of “The Dog”, Wal, Cooch, and a menagerie of animals on a farm in New Zealand. One of the clan was a cat called “Horse." Horse was this super-tough cat that hung around the farm and would basically beat up anything that got in his way.

Well, I’ll do you one better than Horse, I have, “Murray.”

Picture of the day: No dogs allowed!

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Fetch!

Office Hardware Upgrade

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

There was a local Computer Swapmeet in my area this week, so I decided to treat myself to an early birthday present and add a second monitor to my desktop. One Benq 22"W monitor and one Nvidia 9500GT graphics card later and I went from this:

To this:

Plus, the screen saver looks twice as cool:

Pity I’ve got to go to the office tomorrow…

Picture of the day: CSS is Awesome

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Originally from http://twitpic.com/ampek this is a very clever little joke for nerds.

I even found an Australian site where you can buy this on a coffee mug, or a T-shirt, but it’s a bit pricey, especially for XL sizes.

Picture of the day: Find x

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Ever wanted to do this on a maths test when you were at school?

Quote for the day: Political Correctness

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Apparently Texas A&M University holds an annual contest for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term (I tried to find a reference to this on their web site but couldn’t, so keep grains of salt handy. Still damned funny though.)

For “Political Correctness” the winner was:

Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Bazyl Chasing My Mouse Cursor

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

One of our two kittens, Bazyl, has started exploring my desk while I work.

He was quite intrigued for about ten minutes with the mouse cursor on my screen.

(Insert obligatory lolcat dialogue here)

Garage door sensor

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Finally got around to replacing the garage door sensor. I use to have a little micro-switch along with the little lever made out of technical lego.

Click for larger view

It worked alright. The little lego arm would stick out under the door track, so when the door came down it would press on the arm, and the lever would trip the micro-switch.

Click for larger view

It ended up being a bit fiddly and I would occasionally have to move it around or re-tape it in place so the door would hit it properly. It was finally done in when my nephew bounced a basketball off it – and I didn’t have the heart to put it back together again.

Jonathon Coulton

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Gotta love Jonathon Coulton. Who else would write songs about a giant octopus, sci-fi teenage angst, Mandelbrot and zombies?

About Us