This is my web log which contains all sorts of random thoughts I felt it necessary to record for posterity here. I've recorded ideas on all sorts of topics in here so I hope you find something interesting, and maybe even useful!
Warbirds 2024
2024-04-04. Activities. Rating 1. ID 2335.
I have many random interests, several of them quite geeky, and aircraft, especially military planes, has been one for a while now. I live just 3 hours drive from Wanaka which hosts what is arguably New Zealand's best air show, "Warbirds Over Wanaka", which is held every 2 years. For various reasons, amongst them COVID, it has been about 10 years since I went to this event, although I did go to a smaller show at Omaka, New Zealand in 2017.
Ironically, given the past cancellations for the pandemic, I was getting over my second case of COVID on the day that I went (I think I was past the contagious phase, plus I was outside the whole time). I went with our daughter, Nicole, so I'm not sure if I gave it to her. To be fair, I caught it off her the first time I got it, a year or two back!
I have also attended earlier shows at Wanaka in 1992, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2010, and 2012, so I am quite dedicated. Of course, I have reports on all of these shows with many photos and videos on my web site.
The Wanaka show this year was attended by about 70,000 people; not bad for a little town of just over 12,000! This does introduce a few issues. I recently joked to a friend that it took me 5 times as long to get out of the car park (a few hundred meters) at the end of the show than it would take the F16 (an American jet at the show) to fly all the way to Christchurch airport (over 400 kilometers)! To be fair, to do this the F16 would need to fly near its top speed, and the sonic booms might not be popular with those towns it flew over!
One of the great things about the Wanaka show is the scenery and the weather. The airport where it is held in on a wide flat, but there are lakes, hills, and mountains all around. And the weather has never been bad every time I have gone. This year was particularly great with perfect blue skies and a slight breeze. We had a pleasant dinner sitting outside in Wanaka near the lake shore at the end of the show.
As far as the aircraft are concerned, I have to admit I am a sucker for noisy, fast jets, so I loved the F16. If you don't know, it is an American fighter, about to be phased out in the US, but still common in other countries, capable of flying faster than Mach 2 or over 2400 km/h.
I always thought the F16, which has the official name "Fighting Falcon", but is usually referred to as the "Viper" by it pilots, was one of the best looking fighters around. It is relatively small, sleek, and "pointy". It looks like what you expect a jet fighter should look.
The other highlight was the Mosquito fighter/bomber. This British World War II aircraft is rare because, being made of glued together wood, very few survived. But despite what seems a primitive method of construction, they were the fastest plane on either side when they were introduced, thanks to light weight and two massive V12 engines!
I used my old Canon EOS70D digital SLR (20 MPx) and a Canon 75-300 mm zoom lens (giving a maximum effective focal length of about 480 mm) for the high-magnification zoomed shots, and my Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max (12, 24, and 48 MPx, 10x optical zoom) for wide angle stills and video. I did manage to get fairly close up with some shots of rapidly flying planes hundreds of meters away showing the pilot quite clearly. Of course, for every good shot there were 10 or 20 bad!
These types of photos are tricky for two reasons: first, the planes are moving quickly, so getting them centered and focussed can be difficult, because you don't have much time; and second, the sky is so bright, especially when looking towards the Sun, that the aircraft themselves tend to be underexposed, leading to more noise. I used both raw and JPEG images and did significant enhancement on every photo before displaying it!
Anyway, it was a nice break, and a great way to geek out for an aviation enthusiast. I'll wait to see what intersting aircraft they have in 2 years time, because I might just go again!
I hope all my readers had an enjoyable Christmas, and since it's that time of year I want to make a few comments on the subject.
Since I don't attach much more importance to Christianity than I do to other religions, you might think that Christmas is irrelevant to me, but that's not true. First, I quite like some aspects of Christianity; second, it is the dominant religion of the culture I identify with; third, Christmas is as much a secular celebration as a religious one; and finally, the roots of Christmas are pagan and pre-date Christianity anyway, so why get too hung up on the Christian elements?
It is unfortunate that Christmas has become so commercialised, but it is actually fairly easy to ignore that, especially if you avoid the mainstream media like I do. Note that I do watch some TV and skip through our local paper, so I don't totally reject the MSM, I just minimise how much influence it has on me.
I purchased one Christmas gift, for my wife, and left everything else to her because she enjoys buying stuff! Note that although just one gift may seem a bit cheap, it was a brand new MacBook Air M2 worth about $3000 so it was actually fairly extravagant!
Most of what I received was very appropriate: wine, beer, and other forms of alcohol. I got some useful geek t-shirts and other stuff as well, but the alcohol theme seemed dominant. Not sure how I should read that.
My son and his girlfriend who are currently living in Australia visited, and my daughter was also here, so it was a family Christmas, which is what it should be, I think.
There was one unhappy aspect to this time, unfortunately. An old friend of mine died a few days before Christmas, and his funeral, which I was a pall-bearer for, was a couple of days after, so that was a bit depressing, although he had been in bad health for a while now.
Oh, did I mention that I finished work a few days before Christmas having successfully survived another year without being fired? Who knows what will happen next year, but I need the money, so I guess I just have to make the most of it. There are still a lot of great things about working at a university, but the stifling bureaucracy can be a bit depressing some times.
So that was Christmas, and the end of another year, as well as my first real shorter version of my blog. Hope you found this convenient, and don't feel you have been short-changed. Early next year I have an idea of a series of posts on a really outrageous theory I have, so stay tuned for that!
Many years ago now, I was one of the first people at the university to create a personal web site. In fact, I was probably one of the first in the country, and amongst the first few percent of creators in the world. This was in the very earliest days of the popularity of the internet outside of academia and the military, in the 1990s.
I like creating web sites because they fall in that sweet spot for me where art and science combine. Early sites were created using static HTML and very little else, so there wasn't a lot of programming at that time. In fact, calling HTML a programming language is like a standard joke amongst programmers to identify noobs.
But more recently the level of technical skill required has risen dramatically. It's still possible to create simple sites with just HTML, but more often a combination of HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP (or other server-side scripting languages), and SQL are used to create database driven sites with user interactivity. Additionally, it is now necessary to be aware of having mobile-centric presentation for smartphones.
So after creating a site with over 4000 pages using the old techniques it become increasingly clear that I needed to modernise. Instead of plain old web pages, everything is now fed from databases, which allows multiple formats for the same data (to handle mobile), easier maintenance, and extra features like search.
Another factor is that after about 30 years, the connection speeds most people have are a lot faster than they were, so it is possible to have much bigger files available with higher quality graphics, sounds, and movies.
When I engage in a project like this I am constantly aware of the need for maintaining a reliable and bug-free experience for my visitors. At this time, I have had over 45 million views of my site. I know that's small number for a significant commercial site, but for a small, private web site, which I make no effort to advertise, it isn't too bad.
So I started this project in 2020 and have been wondering when to switch my main server over to run it instead of the old site. I keep finding things I have missed out, or bugs I have created, so I keep delaying the launch. Note that this is just something I do in my spare time, so I don't have a huge amount of time to dedicate to it.
But, as you might have guessed, the time to launch is now!
So you might be viewing this on my new site or my old (I maintained the old site for the convenience of people who have created bookmarks, but a lot of it won't be maintained). The layout of the two is similar, but the new site can be easily recognised by the OJB logo at top-left, and a blue bar containing various functions along the bottom.
Some people have asked why I didn't make a massive change to the way the site looks, but I sort of figured the old site worked well for over 20 years, so why change it. I should say that the navigation on the new site is a lot easier, and there are no pages buried under 5 or more layers of menus in unexpected places any more!
Some of the old site was already database driven, such as this blog, so the old and nee sites will source the same material from the database server. This means a lot of the old site will stay partly up to date, but I will put a notice on the older pages requesting people start using the new one, if the logs indicate the old one is still being used a lot.
At this stage the new site id the default option when you visit ojb.nz (yes, I have one of the shortest URLS anywhere, and small is good when it comes to URLs!) so it will be interesting to see how much traffic it gets. At least, now that there is a mobile friendly version, I hope to get more visits from users of phones and other smaller devices.
So that is my Christmas project. As I said, I have been working ont he conversion for a coule of years, on and off, but now that I have some spare time off work I can monitor the new system and fix any issues. So, if you notice any issues please email me: there's a link at the bottom of every page, or if the page doesn't load properly (surely not) my address if ojb@mac.com.
Well, it's happened. After two and a half years of living in a global pandemic, the 'VID has finally got me! I tested positive on Sunday morning, after feeling pretty bad, but getting a negative two RAT results the previous day.
And I know where it came from too. My daughter caught it from a friend, who ironically was fastidious in his use of masks, to the extent of using them even when he was alone in his car. I know no one claims masks to be a 100% reliable method for protection from the virus, but I think they are more trouble than they're worth.
I am basing the following stats on material I have read in credible sources, so if you have different numbers just be aware they vary greatly depending on the methodology used. Masks give about a 30% increased level of protection if worn by a person with COVID in ideal circumstances. Cloth masks are almost useless, masks worn incorrectly are almost useless, masks worn for protection for someone who wants to avoid catching COVID are of limited use.
So sure, they're not useless, but they are almost useless, so I say forget about them. Just isolate if you have COVID and keep your distance when possible. Otherwise, just accept that you will get it. It's almost inevitable.
In fact, we have masks because they're easy for our "leaders". they involve no real thought, and they do have an element of effectiveness, which helps, plus (and here comes a conspiracy) they act a s a signal of compliance. People who wear them are saying "look at me, Im a good person doing what my esteemed PM tells me to do!"
So how did it affect me? Well, I'm three days into it now, and already feeling a bit better. It's hard to evaluate these things, but I would say it is worse than a cold, but not as bad as flu. That is just me, and I have only ever had flu once, so it is difficult to remember, but I'm fairly sure the symptoms were worse, and lasted for longer.
If it wasn't for isolation rules I might have gone to work today, because I really don't feel that bad, but the hot and cold sensations, fatigue, and a bit of coughing and sneezing were unpleasant without making me feel like the grim reaper was knocking on my door! Of course, going to work when you are sick, whether it is COVID or just a cold, is pretty unreasonable at any time, and maybe this pandemic might change attitudes to that in the future.
I have not been too worried about following the lockdown rules for the entire duration of this rather tedious period in our history, but I will take isolation seriously now that I have the disease. Within a day or two one person infected my whole family of four, so clearly it is quite contagious. It just makes sense, whatever the government's rules are (which I largely ignore, except when I'm forced to comply), I will isolate because that is the reasonable thing to do, not because some bureaucrat in Wellington has told me to.
But what about the science? Well, the science is very much over-rated, in my opinion, and that is not an opinion you will see here often from me. Why?
Well, doctors aren't scientists. Far from it, in fact. I've heard an awful lot of ignorance and poor reasoning from doctors over they years and I don't rate them highly. I do rate them in the upper half of professions, but not near the top.
What about "real" scientists, like the people doing the modelling? Well, the modelling is embarrassing. I've never seen any (so-called) scientific endeavour be so consistently wrong, yet still be taken seriously. Forget the modelling. It tends to be done by non-specialists (like by a physicist) and scientists working outside their area of expertise have a very poor reputation for producing anything of any value.
And the medical scientists are taking a very simplistic view. They keep telling us to wear masks, for example, but don't allow for the fact that most people wear the wrong mask, or the right mask but in the wrong way. These people are OK in the tiny little area of expertise they have, but we need a big picture view here.
Of course, I hardly need to say that we should ignore the politicians.
We have just treated our illness with fairly common drugs like paracetamol and ibuprofen, which seem to be helpful. I use drugs to help sleep as well, but that happens all the time for me. And my wife suggested lemon juice and whiskey which probably didn't help with my symptoms but which I "reluctantly" took anyway!
My wife also contacted the pharmacy about getting anti-viral drugs, but apparently because she is not a Maori she isn't allowed any, even though she has other relevant health issues. Is this the sort of racist policy we really should be celebrating here in New Zealand? The sooner this revolting government is gone, the better, I say.
Surely we should have no policies based on race. Maori don't have worse outcomes because they are Maori (in most cases), they have them because of cultural issues, such as poor housing and poor attitudes to self-help, and these issues affect every community to varying extents. So if people who live in poor housing need extra help, ask that question instead, and include people of all races who might need the help.
So there's an update on my personal life, which inevitably got political. I'm sure no one is surprised about that. Even when I'm sick, I'm still keen on a good rant!
I think the three weeks since my last blog post might represent the longest time I have ever neglected my blogging duties for, so now is time for an update on various small issues before I get back into talking about the big subjects.
While New Zealand is finally showing some signs of escaping the self-imposed prison we have created in a simple-minded attempt at controlling COVID, we are still dealing with the consequences of it. And by "it" here I mean as much the "cure" we have had forced onto us as much as the "disease" itself.
In fact, I often like to point out when watching mainstream news that what they are saying is often not technically correct. For example, when they say we couldn't go to large sporting events because of COVID, that wasn't entirely correct, because we couldn't do that as a result of the government's over-reaction to COVID, not directly because of COVID itself.
Sure, I agree, that you could make a case to say that the restrictions were justified, especially in the earlier stages of this event, but you could also make a case to say that other types of action would have been superior. And in either case, it is the response, rather than the pandemic itself, which is causing a lot of the harm; a point the MSM tend to overlook.
So having staff missing at work, because of the need to isolate or keep away from possible infections as a precaution, and the need to support remote learning and other computer related technologies, has meant I have a bit less free time than usual.
And I have had a few extra private computer jobs to do, because I'm recommending that people should buy new Macs again. Why? Because I think Apple went through a period where their computers weren't that compelling, and the laptops in particular had some major flaws. And even putting that aside, they were not an obvious step forward over older models, so I tended to recommend that people stick with older machines at that time.
But since then Apple seem to have got the message and the latest machines are brilliant. In fact, a few months back I bought a new M1 Pro, 16 inch MacBook Pro myself, which has been absolutely awesome, even though my previous laptop was a top machine, featuring an i7 processor from about 10 years ago.
My final excuse is a minor injury I sustained about 2 weeks back which has made typing and general computer use awkward.
Here's what happened: I was doing some gardening work in the weekend by mulching some branches from some trees we had pruned. At this point most people see where this is going! While trying to clear some excess material from the mulcher I stuck my finger somewhere I shouldn't have, and had to get the end of that finger "repaired" at the local emergency department. It wasn't actually cut off, but it was smashed up a bit and the end of the finger bone was shattered, and having a thick bandage on there has made typing difficult.
In fact, I have been making plenty of corrections while typing this post; I hope you appreciate the effort!
Visiting the emergency department is always interesting. Actually, I did try to go to my normal doctor (which I visit about once a decade, and I don't even know who it is) and an after hours doctor first, but that didn't work out. So the ED was about the same as usual: very helpful and competent, but also very slow. What could have been done in 15 minutes took 5 hours!
I do have to say that, despite the stories we hear about a crisis in health, nursing, etc, the staff there didn't seem particularly busy or stressed. In fact, I think I'm a lot busier and more stressed in my work. I should emphasise that this is just a single anecdote and I'm not saying there isn't a genuine issue there, just that I didn't see it.
In fact, I do have a certain amount of sympathy for the current push for "pay equity" for nurses. I think pay equity in general is BS, but if any female-dominated job was going to be paid more I think I would want it to be nurses rather than anything else. For example, please don't make it teachers: I have very little respect for them!
So I hope to get back to more regular posts soon. There are so many subjects I would like to talk about: the latest on COVID, the war in Ukraine, changing politics in New Zealand, free speech and political correctness (yeah, maybe I've covered those before), and many others. There's always something worth commenting on!
You might have noticed that it has been a couple of weeks since I wrote a blog post. Why? Well, there is so much to do when you are interested in the areas of social media, web content, and other geeky IT stuff, and I could easily spend all of my spare time on just keeping my blog up to date, or creating more podcasts, or debating with nutters on Facebook and Twitter, or maintaining my web site, but I can't fully do all of those things together. So, which should I choose?
I was fairly early in creating a web site. In fact, back in the day when my workplace was far more flexible than it is now, and I didn't have my own server, I created a personal web site hosted at work, and I believe I was the first person to do this. That was in the 1990s, so my web site dates from the fairly early days of the web.
The problem is that things have changed quite a lot since then, and by "quite a lot" I mean a whole lot! No one had mobile devices back then, screens on computers were quite small, bandwidth was ridiculously poor (often utilising dial-up modems), and most web sites were static and didn't provide many interactive or feedback mechanisms.
I have added new features to my site since the early days to keep it partly up to date, but the underlying structure was always a problem. For example, about half the pages were delivered through static HTML documents, and only the newer features were served from databases. And some of the graphics were of poor quality because they were optimised to load quickly on slow connections. And, maybe most importantly, there was no mobile optimised version for phones and other devices with small screens.
So the obvious answer was just to move all the information from static pages to a database and provide the content through optimised templates and responsive stylesheets based on the visitor's requirements. How hard could it be? Well, if my site only had a few pages, or a few dozen, or even a few hundred, the conversion task would be manageable. But my site has 5000 pages and, if it takes 30 minutes per page to convert, that adds up to 2500 hours, or about a year of full-time work!
One person suggested I convert my blog initially, which is already sourced from a database, and then do the rest when I can, but there are so many connections from one part of my site to others that even that was quite difficult to get right. So I decided to convert everything instead!
I have found a lot of shortcuts and optimisations, which means that it will take a lot less than 2500 hours, but it is still a significant task. And that's why my blog has suffered a bit recently; my new web site is taking all my time. This blog post - ironically about the subject which has stopped me from creating other blog posts - is just a short interlude in the greater task of web programming.
So for all of those people who are missing the vicious, or occasionally amusing, political invective of my blog, I will get back to it in the next month or two. And for those who are missing me pointing out the deficiencies in their arguments in on-line debates: I'll get back to you as soon as possible!
Last night I went to a music concert featuring popular performer, Ed Sheeran. Now, I do have to say that I'm not necessarily a big fan, and it was really an event my wife wanted to go to rather than me, but he is a competent musician, and some of his material is quite good. Yeah, I'm sort of damning with faint praise there, a bit!
The small city I live in invested in a covered stadium - the only one in New Zealand - a few years back, and it has been a real asset in many ways, attracting many music events which would not have been likely to come here otherwise. Ed Sheeran was one, and I also saw Robbie Williams, and Black Sabbath there recently.
But what's the point? Well I do have to say that live concerts featuring leading performers, like Ed Sheeran (and Ozzie Osbourne!) are quite special and there's something unique about being actually at a real event. A similar argument applies to watching movies in a real movie theatre instead of at home. But at the same time the standard of entertainment experience I now have at home is pretty exceptional too!
I was listening to some music on my AV system today and a particular song played which was beautifully recorded in the old-fashioned way: without a lot of digital processing or fancy techniques but with just a few mics and directly onto a fairly high quality medium (probably analog). The sound was just so pure and true, and orders of magnitude better than anything I have heard at a live concert where the sound quality (especially in a roofed stadium where echo can blur the sound) is actually pretty poor.
I have a fairly sophisticated AV system with a good quality multi-channel receiver, speakers, and other components. It's nowhere near as high-end as a true fanatic with plenty of money might have, but it is far better than the average system. Anyway, when the source is good it really can sound great. There's plenty of power, good bass from the sub, and I have fine-tuned everything to optimise the sound. The biggest issue is that I have some items in the room which vibrate when the bass gets too extreme - but my wife won't let me remove them. I mean, does the wood burner really need a chimney (especially one that vibrates at about 30 Hz)? I don't think so!
I also recently upgraded my TV to a UHD (4K) model with HDR. The screen is only moderately big at 58 inches, but the room isn't big enough to make anything bigger practical. But again, the picture quality can be magnificent. With a really good source, recorded in UHD, at a high frame rate, and optimised for HDR, it's almost like the picture is a real thing you can reach out and touch. The blacks are really deep, the whites are super bright, and the colours can be really saturated but also be subtle and realistic. Again, I spent a fair bit of time optimising the many settings the TV has to get it working the way I like.
So my point is why would I want to go to a movie or a live concert? The system I have at home offers a far better experience. Even if I ignore the tedium of the tasks associated with the outside experience - like finding parking, buying movie tickets, and driving home through massive traffic jams after concerts - the home system still looks and sounds better. And, if you ignore the initial cost of the equipment (over $15000 original full price), it is far cheaper too.
As I said above, there is something special about live events, so I will probably continue going to them, but home-based AV systems are certainly a great alternative, especially when combined with services like Apple Music and Netflix.
About 4 years ago my wife decided she would leave teaching (mainly because the school she taught at was managed by a bunch of incompetents, and the roll had reduced so much that some of the teachers were made redundant) and open a business of her own, in this case a cafe. Now, anyone who has been involved in owning or managing a cafe at this point is probably already thinking "bad idea", and in many ways they would be right.
Why? Because it seems to be almost impossible to make any money from that kind of business, plus for the privilege of making little, if any money, the owner/manager has to work 12 hours a day - starting at 5 in the morning - 6 days a week.
But that's not the worst of it either, because maybe an even more overwhelmingly soul-sapping aspect of owning a small business is the excess of mindless bureaucracy involved which results in very little of any value.
Of course, Inland Revenue is probably the worst offender, closely followed by other organisations like the local City Council. Then there are a collection of lesser parasites like insurance agents, body corporates, various health and safety organisations, lawyers, business experts, and advertisers.
I have a "real" job but also helped with running the cafe, especially with administration and accounting. Yes, you read that right: I helped with the tasks I most despise. While I felt as if most of them were a waste of time, at least I did gain a few skills in that area - but skills I hope I never have to use again!
On the other hand I did learn some more interesting stuff too. For example, at one point I was doing some baking and managed to make some pretty decent batches of scones and muffins. I never quite perfected making consistently good coffee though - that is a lot harder than you might think!
But getting back to the admin tasks. I had some major issues with those, so let me list a few of them here.
First, tax. Now I know that the two most onerous tax activities - GST and PAYE - are not actually costing me anything because I am just collecting tax for the government by adding an extra amount to prices and wages, but I do object to the amount of effort involved in doing that work. If the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) want to collect tax on sales of goods and services and on wages why don't they do the work and collect the money themselves?
If I took the amount of time people spend on tax gathering activities (on behalf of the IRD) and multiplied by the number of businesses in New Zealand, it must come to a truly horrendous amount of time. How does IRD get away with this travesty of bureaucratic time wasting? Because they can. They can make whatever rules they like - whether they are fair or not - and impose them on whoever they want.
Note that I am not against tax, in fact far from it. It's not paying the tax that worries me, it is the amount of time a person like myself, who is talented in many areas, wastes on doing IRD's work for them.
And other government agencies are maybe even worse. We had to collect a payment from one employee, who had been incorrectly paid a benefit, and process the payment for the department involved. If we didn't do this - even though it was nothing to do with us and had happened before we even employed the person - we would be fined. Again, this is an arbitrary and unfair law which was created simply because it could be.
Then there are the other forms of bureaucracy. The local council's hygiene regulations are particularly silly. My wife took that very seriously and she maintained high standards, but I know that the inspection is more to do with paperwork being filled in correctly rather than any real measures designed to optimise food safety. I know other cafe owners who had terrible standards but kept the paper work up to date and achieved the top rating as a result.
My advice is to ignore the hygiene rating you see displayed at food premises, because that is just a measure of how well the person does documentation. Instead, have a look around any place you visit and search for signs of neglect.
It might seem to many people that running a small business is a truly worthwhile undertaking. Small businesses employee a lot of people and contribute significantly to the economy. And the government spends a lot of time talking about how important small businesses are, and how they want to encourage people to start one.
But they sure have a strange way of showing their enthusiasm. If they really wanted people to start a small business, why can't the government and other authorities make the whole process a lot easier?
I'm sure that people running a cafe would rather make use of their talents in areas like baking, cooking, and hospitality instead of wasting hours every week on meaningless paper work. And I'm sure a struggling business where the owner is effectively making less than the minimum wage while working 70 hours a week would appreciate not having to pay provisional taxes on money which hasn't even been earned yet.
I am contemplating becoming self-employed myself in the near future, but the advantages of being free of the stupidity of ignorant and dogmatic management decisions are at least partly negated by the dread I have of processing GST and other time-wasting accounting.
People might say that spending that time on tax calculations is just part of their "civic duty" as a citizen, but is it really? Would it not be better for the country if people spent their time doing what they're good at? Why is accounting considered something everyone has to do, or pay an exorbitant fee to some accountant to do for them.
So yes, the end of our cafe means the end of processing payrolls, GST returns, tax payments, employer returns, hygiene certificates, building safety checks, and various other nonsense I can't even bear to contemplate right now. It's like the end of an era... or should that be end of an error?
My loyal readers might have noticed that I haven't written a blog post for a while despite the abundance of source material I could have used. There is a simple explanation for this: I am working on too many other projects just at the moment and have tended to spend time on those instead. Contrary to what you might think I do spend a reasonable amount of time researching, writing, and revising each blog post and they're not just tossed together in 5 minutes!
Most of what I am working on currently are programming projects which all seem to have become critical at the same time. But that doesn't really worry me because (and I'm sorry if this sounds really geeky) programming is fun. It's one of those rare creative activities which results in something which is actually useful (well, at least in most cases).
When I create a new system (and my current projects all involve web-based databases and apps written using PHP and MySQL) I like to create something which is easier to use, more reliable, faster, and just generally more elegant than the alternatives. There are some pretty impressive web-based systems out there now but there is a much greater number of truly terrible ones, so in general I just hope to raise the average a bit.
It's quite amusing using another person's web system and noticing all the design and functional errors they have made and smugly thinking "amateurs! my projects never suffer from that problem!" Of course, I shouldn't be too smart because every system has its faults.
As I have said in the past, programming is a great combination of art and science, or at least it should be because both are required to get the best outcome. The art component doesn't just involve superficial factors like graphics and typography, it is deeper than that and requires creation of a friendly, logical, and flexible user interaction. The science component should be obvious: programs must be technically correct, perform calculations accurately, but also more subtly be fault tolerant, easy to enhance, and interact with other systems properly.
All of this is not easy to achieve and I have made plenty of mistakes myself, so it is even better when something does magically come together in a positive way. And that description is significant because the way I work a project is an evolving, organic thing which often changes form and function as it progresses. I always have a plan, diagrams for the database structure, flow diagrams for the general functional flow of the program, and technical notes on how certain functions should be performed before I start coding, but by the time the project is finished all of these have changed.
And I am often asked to write technical documentation while I am creating a new system but that is useless because I change the details so often that it's better just to write that documentation when the project is complete.
When I look back at old projects I am sometimes amused at the naive techniques I used "back in the day" but more often I am quite amazed at some of the awesome, complex code and clever techniques I have used. It's not usually that I set out to write really clever, complex code, it's more that as more functions and features evolved the code became more and more impressive. But it is too easy in that situation to let things become convoluted and clumsy. In that case I toss that section out and start again. Sometimes my systems take a little bit longer to complete but they always work properly!
And that brings me to my last design philosophy. I don't re-use a lot of code, I rarely recycle libraries and classes, and I definitely avoid using other people's code. Also I don't use rapid prototyping tools and I don't use graphical tools to create markup code like HTML. No, it's all done "on the bare metal".
In fact that's not really true, or course. I was recently tidying up some shelves in my office and found some old machine code programs I wrote back on the 80s. Now that was really coding on the bare metal! Multiplying two numbers together was a big job in that environment (the 6502 had no multiply instruction) so PHP and hand-coded HTML are pure luxury compared with that!
Well that's enough talking about it, it's time to get back to doing it. I've got a nasty bit of database backup code to debug right now. Some sort of privileges error I think, time for some science and not so much art.
Last Sunday I did my usual biennial visit to the Warbirds Over Wanaka air show. I left about 7.30 in the morning and was there by about 10.30. Yes, I did a bit of "low flying" getting there (I won't mention my maximum speed here) and got my first speeding fine for about 2 years. But I just see the occasional speeding fine as an added cost of driving. I know other people who have been let off with a warning for doing more than I did, so the whole thing is just not fair! (See my other blog entries for similar experiences of "Fred".)
Once I got there I enjoyed the low flying of the various aircraft on display. I don't think the show was quite as good as some in the past but it was still well worth attending, even though a lot of what was shown I had already seen in past shows.
One of my favourite planes is the Hawker Hunter and that flew at the show. I also saw a few planes I hadn't seen before, such as the Avenger, Fokker D.VIII, Strikemaster, and Agusta 109 helicopter.
I did my usual photography, both still and video, and got some pretty brilliant photos (and I say that with all appropriate modesty). My report on the show, with photos, videos, and commentary is here.
I'm not going to comment on the pathetic excuse for a budget our (New Zealand) government had the temerity to release today. I'll think about it for a while and then comment. Maybe after that time I will have seen some merit in it, or more likely it will seem even worse than it does now!
No, in this entry I want to comment on something far more positive: how well my server transition went yesterday. For a few years now my main web server has been an old Power Mac G4 and I wanted to upgrade to something slightly more modern: a Power Mac G5 (yes, I did say it was only slightly more modern).
The problem is that my server runs 8 web sites, although only one is very substantial, and has many databases running in the background. There are also some custom configurations it requires to run. Of course I wanted the web sites to be down for the minimum amount of time during the transition. Oh, and to make things slightly more complicated I had to do all this in my spare time between doing "real work".
There was one factor on my side though: I was using Macs!
As you can probably tell from my triumphant tone (and the title of this blog) it worked really well! All of the web sites are running correctly. The databases (including this blogging system) are all running as expected, and the new system is significantly faster than the old one (although the upstream speed of my internet connection is still a bit slow for this purpose).
So I installed new hardware, a much more modern operating system, new versions of PHP, MySQL, and Apache, and the latest versions of all the web sites, plus I maintained the data (over a million records) from all of the databases with a total down time of about 2 minutes. And now, 24 hours later, I haven't found any problems.
So that's my happy computer story. On most days I encounter enough weird computer problems which I have to waste a lot of time to solve, so it's nice to win for a change!
Over the years I have bought a lot of computer books. I've bought books about programming and other practical technical subjects, textbooks I used when I was a computer science student, and lots of magazines and other material about general computer subjects. They have been sitting on a bookshelf in our spare room and I haven't used any of them for years.
Today we needed to clear some space and I went through the books and realised that they were almost all useless. The hardware, the programming languages, the application programs, and most of the techniques have changed so much that practically none of the books were relevant any more.
Not only that but I don't use traditional books any more. All of my technical documentation, my reference material, and my user manuals are stored on my computer as PDFs and other formats. And my fiction books and magazines are on my iPad in electronic formats like EPUB. I really do seem to have made significant progress towards achieving a paperless life.
Some simple calculations show just how efficient computer storage really is. A 1 terabyte drive (not huge by modern standards) can store 1 million average size books. Sure, I agree that is just text (based on 2K per page and 500 pages per book) and graphics would require significantly more storage, but the basic principle is clear: one drive can store a lot more than the total knowledge of the ancient world found at the Great Library of Alexandria - and I currently have 10 drives!
When I was looking through the old material I realised that things have progressed greatly in most ways but I also realised there was a lot of older stuff which was actually really good and is either no longer available or has become unfashionable in some way.
One example is Hypercard, Apple's program which was extremely popular for making "stacks" which performed many varied tasks. Hypercard was a great fast development environment with a scripting language which was both easy to use and powerful. And while I'm on the subject of programming languages, I still think Pascal is better than C! But I never liked some of the other older languages much so the three programming manuals for COBOL I had never got much use!
I'm not sure whether electronic books are better than paper books from an environmental or sustainability perspective. I'm not sure whether ebooks are more natural or pleasant to use than paper books. But I am certain that ebooks are a lot easier to search and a lot easier to keep up to date. And they are certainly a lot easier to store!
I have been writing this blog for a long time - since before most people even knew what a blog is in fact. My first blog entry was written over 7 years ago in April 2003. Since then I have written well over 1000 entries which are the equivalent of about 900 A4 pages of text. Then there's all the comments: over 2600 on my main blog (which I wrote about half of) plus many more on other blogging sites I publish the same information on.
So writing blog entries is a big commitment and one that I can't keep up with at all times. There are so many interesting issues I want to comment on: from new discoveries that our universe might be part of a multiverse to the (inaccurately reported) news that Richard Dawkins wants to arrest the Pope!
But I have been blogging less recently and that will probably continue for a while because I have so many other commitments which I need to use my spare time pursuing. I'm afraid that most of them are work related: web sites, databases, and other geeky computer stuff, but hopefully that will lessen as time passes and I might get back to the "glory days" of mid 2008 when I wrote something almost every day.
So really it's not that I've got nothing to say but more that I don't have time to say it. Or at least not in a reasonably lucid form which has been reasonably thoroughly checked and is backed up with at least a basic amount of research. So I'll get on with that work now and get back to the Pope being arrested later - hopefully in the near future.
Yesterday I went to the Warbirds Over Wanaka air show. The show is run every second year (at Wanaka airport, Otago, New Zealand) and I attend most years (although I didn't go last time). As well as enjoying watching the aircraft (which is one of my interests) it's also a great opportunity to take some interesting photos, and photographing fast moving objects is usually quite challenging.
I took several hundred photos and quite a bit of standard definition and high definition video and I will use some of these in the report I will write for my web site. I already have reports for the same show in 1992, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2004, and 2006.
Originally the show specialised in World War II era aircraft but more recently there has been a much wider range displayed. In 2006 these ranged from the 1918 Bleriot capable of 70 kilometers per hour to the F-111 from the Australian Air Force which is capable of about 3000! An impressive change in just 50 years.
There's usually a rare fighter shown at each show. In the past there was a Messerschmitt Me 109, Polikarpov I-16s, a Hawker Hurricane, and the Russian Yak 3 and LA9. This year there was a Japanese Zero. There are also the more common P-51 Mustangs, Spitfires, Corsair and Kittyhawks which appear every year - yes, I know, I hate to to call the Spitfire "common"!
The Lithuanian aerobatics pilot Yurgis Kairys has made an appearance at several shows and he was there again this year flying a crazy and spectacular series of maneuvers in the aircraft he designed himself. That's always a highlight.
The RNZAF put on a good display (especially considering it doesn't even have a fighter wing any more) with its Seasprite and Iroquois helicopters, Orion and Hercules transport planes, its parachute team, and various other aircraft.
The New Zealand Air Force may lack spectacular fighters but Australia certainly doesn't. The RAAF sent 4 F/A-18 Hornets and they were just awesome! They flew in unexpectedly and they fly fast so they are well ahead of their sound. They just arrive without warning, fly over, then the sound hits you. On a fast, low pass over the airfield the sound is just indescribable.
My report on the show, including photos, sound and movies, will be on my web site (the airshow section is here) in the next week or two (it's hard to find time to work on this between other projects) so if you are interested in this sort of stuff stay tuned.
Yesterday I was sitting in one of the cafes we have distributed around the campus of the university I work at writing some notes on Richard Dawkins' latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, when an odd person came up to me and claimed: "he's a real dork you know". I enquired: "who do you mean, Richard Dawkins? What's the problem?" but by that time he had scuttled away.
So it seems that Dawkins' influence is significant with all kinds of different people. I have no idea what this particular individual's problem was - presumably he was some sort of religious freak who didn't like criticism of his beliefs - and its unfortunate I couldn't have got some more details. Actually, now that I think about it more, maybe its fortunate I didn't engage this person in debate because I suspect he might not have made much sense (so much for universities being the center for informed intellectual debate!)
Anyway, if you are interested in the subject, my brief summary of some of the highlights from the book (which is actually well written and very readable) is here. If you have any comments please leave them in the discussion system, but please make it a bit more consequential than an ad hominem attack on the author!
For the second time in the last few weeks I have taken a few days off and disappeared away for a short break. This time it was Queenstown and I'm afraid we struck a second period of bad weather (just like the trip to Nelson at the beginning of the month). To make things worse I didn't have a reliable internet connection and not even 3G cell phone coverage, so I couldn't even connect at a decent speed through my iPhone.
Queenstown is a nice place to visit and we did manage to do our traditional trip on the gondola to the top of the hill and do a few runs on the luge there. We even experienced a few flakes of snow at the top although it wasn't really as cold as that might indicate.
Of course I had some computer work to do while I was there but most of the time we just relaxed. There was one aspect of the stay in Queenstown I want to discuss here though. The friend who provided the accommodation is a fundamentalist Christian and there is always a lot of religious material in the house we stay in as well as some new apologetics DVDs he wanted me to watch.
So I watched one of the DVDs which supposedly showed that evolution was untrue and bad for science. Naturally it was mostly nonsense although it was slightly more sophisticated than most of the material of that sort I have seen. When I read or watch this sort of stuff I usually make a few notes so that I can make a response but I thought why not this time put the critique of the DVD on-line. So I have started a new section of my web site for criticisms of this sort of material which will be available soon.
While I was doing this my 16 year old daughter decided she was going to read the Bible. None of my family are religious but, as I have said many times in the past, there's no harm in reading a religious book. I know that some religious families ban non-religious material and I would be just as bad if I didn't encourage curiosity about the Bible.
I am an atheist and frequently criticise the Bible but I really tried to encourage an open approach on this occasion. Even so, my daughter just couldn't believe what she was reading. Not surprisingly she started at the beginning and read the Old Testament stories like the creation myth, Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot and his daughters, Abraham, etc.
The conclusion she reached was that the stories were quite fascinating to read (even if they are a bit violent and risque) but no one with any common sense would really believe they were true. If a teenager can see this then why can't the fundy Christians!
I did point out that there are hidden meanings behind the basic stories but when I had to explain what they were I realised that they are nothing particularly worthwhile. What's the story behind creation? Nothing. Its just an attempted explanation of the origin of the universe and life from a primitive tribe and, apart from its value as fiction (which is very little), there's no great hidden meaning there.
And the other stories are similar. They just seem to be on the same theme of being obedient to god or you (and a lot of innocents) will be killed. Not much of a message there really. And the stories all seem to have a lot more violence and sexual content than you would expect in a religious work!
Sure I agree that I'm only criticising the start of the Old Testament here and that there is a lot more worthwhile philosophy in the New Testament. But the NT is also awkward to read, and of very little literary or philosophical value in my opinion. Anyone genuinely interested in mythology, philosophy or literature would do a lot better to look elsewhere.
In the past some religious friends have accused me of deliberately turning my family against religion or even endangering their relationship with god (or something similar). In my defence I would say that I really do encourage them to explore these issues and think about it for themselves. I actually defended the Bible because my daughter's initial impression was that its a pile of crap. OK, it is in some ways, but read it as fun mythology or as an intriguing examination of the minds of the writers thousands of years ago and it becomes quite different.
As far as spoiling their relationship with God. Well I would expect most gods would be smart enough to notice that a person had been lead astray by someone like me and really if he decides to punish them with eternal torment because of that then he really isn't much of a god and deserves all the derision we can aim at him.
Yesterday I returned from a 5 day trip to Nelson and back (a distance of about 1600 kilometers). Nelson is a great holiday destination but on this occasion the reason for the visit was to collect a car for my daughter and to make some improvements to an accounting program I created for my mother-in-law - its very important to get that right!
Actually its just as well the main purpose wasn't a holiday because the weather was fairly terrible. Nelson has a reputation for having good weather (it generally has the highest sunshine hours in New Zealand) but on this occasion there was almost continuous heavy rain and fairly cool temperatures. It wasn't so good yesterday when we got back to Dunedin either but today the weather has returned to pleasant spring conditions.
I usually write a few blog entries even when I am away from home but on this occasion I didn't because I had a technical problem with my web site. I was horrified to receive an email (on my iPhone) as I was travelling north saying the web site couldn't be contacted. I didn't worry too much because sometimes there are problems with the links to the rest of the world and I expected it to fix itself fairly quickly.
Unfortunately it didn't and I diagnosed the fault as a problem with my ADSL router. That was locked inside the house and I was away for 5 days so my web server was unavailable for that long. This is not the standard of professionalism I usually have (my up-time is usually better than some real web hosting services) but I will rearrange my home network so the modem can be restarted from the basement (which is more accessible) so I can phone someone and ask them to fix things in the unlikely (I hope) event it happens again.
I hasten to point out that my good old reliable Mac servers kept running perfectly and they have had 100% uptime over the last few years they have been running. It was my modem (usually very reliable itself) which had got confused.
Knowing my servers were unavailable was a bit of a worry because I was constantly trying to think of a clever way to fix things by "remote control" but apart from that the trip was successful. We did have 2 pleasant breaks overnight at Hanmer Springs on the way to and from Nelson and sitting in the hot pools while admiring the mountain scenery tends to make you forget (temporarily at least) about technical issues like web server problems.
So it was back to work today with about 300 email messages to deal with and various other IT related problems to solve. Playing with computers is fun but sometimes I'd rather be back at Hanmer Springs. I particularly want to take my telescope up there some time because the night sky is just superb, although on this occasion the Moon and some light cloud would have made observing a bit of a waste of time.
Now that my daughter has a car we now have three at home. To make matters worse my wife has won a new car in a competition so we will have 4 tomorrow. It might be time to thin out the fleet a bit, I think!
We have already found a couple of enhancements which would be helpful in the accounting program so another visit to Nelson seems likely, but that won't be until Christmas. I do have a few more days off coming up soon for a short visit to Queenstown (yes, I have some computer work to do there too) so I really must re-arrange the network before that happens. Whether the servers are on or off line isn't exactly critical but I always think if you're going to run a web service you need to aim for the best reliability possible.
There was a real chance that today would have been the third day in a row that I hadn't written a blog entry! I try to miss only one day maximum, after two days I start to get a bit anxious. Three days without blogging would be a disaster!
So what has lead to this most unexpected lack of dedication on my part? Actually I have been involved with a couple of interesting projects recently which have used up so much time that I've not had a chance to write a blog entry.
The first was a programming project I am working on (in fact one I have been doing parts of here and there for about 6 months now). I got to the point in this project (which is a complex client/server web-based database system) where I needed to create graphs of the data so I decided to write a graphing module which uses Javascript and works in web browsers.
Making graphs is fun because they look pretty and users tend to react positively to them because of that. Its also a good demonstration of how its possible to do almost anything in a web browser now - things which could only be done in "real" programs in the past.
The other big thing which has been using up time is a science fair project I have been helping my son with (well actually I'm more than just helping but that's common enough with these things). The project is to test the power output and economy of batteries.
I set up a cool experimental system with a webcam capturing a time-lapse movie to monitor some torches we set up. Four torches sued four different types of battery and we monitored them for several days to day how long they would last.
I thought maybe 2 or 3 days would be enough so I set the time lapse to do a frame every 5 minutes for 5 days. After 5 days even the cheap batteries were still going strong so I had to start another set of 5 days. Eventually the torches went for more than a week. Its amazing how long even AAA batteries will power those high efficiency LEDs.
The second experiment was to test batteries in a high drain device. I thought a model RC car would be good for this so we decided to run one (an Aston Martin DB9 - you might as well have some class) around a 40 meter track I set up. The first batteries did about 25 laps and I thought the alkaline batteries might double that. Well the car took off like a rocket - twice as fast - and was still going 200 laps later. The more expensive alkalines powered the car for over 11 kilometers which took almost 2 hours to complete!
I stored the results, did the analysis, and drew the graphs using Numbers - Apple's new spreadsheet program - and it was so nice. So much easier to use than Excel although it still lacks some of Excel's advanced features. So I now use Pages instead of Word, KeyNote instead of PowerPoint, and Numbers insetad of Excel. So I'm completely free of badly designed Microsoft software. That's computing nirvana!
Every now and again I post an entry here talking about a new toy I have bought. For many years now (like about 30) I have been a serious amateur photographer. Technology moves on and its worth updating camera equipment every 2 or 3 years so now was the time to do it again.
In fact the time to do it was near the end of last year but my previous attempt at updating my camera went terribly wrong! As I have commented on in the past I am a great fan of on-line auction sites, mainly TradeMe, New Zealand's main (almost only) site.
Last year I bought a new camera and lens on TradeMe and paid up my NZ$2300 (good cameras aren't cheap) and patiently waited for the camera to arrive. After a few days it became obvious something was wrong and it turned out the whole thing was a scam run by a trader who is currently being prosecuted by police.
I have always used Canon cameras but that camera was a Nikon (a D90) which I chose because it had features Canon didn't have at the time. Since then Canon has introduced an even better (and cheaper) camera than the Nikon which I have also bought on TradeMe. As long as it turns up in the next few days I will be happy. Every day delay will be a cause of concern!
But really on-line auctions are fairly safe. I have bought thousands of dollars worth of gadgets on-line and only been ripped off once. It was unfortunate that the rip-off involved one of the most expensive items I bought though!
So what progress has digital photography made since my last camera? Well quite a lot actually. My previous camera was a Canon EOS 350D, an 8 megapixel digital SLR, and its still a very fine camera, even 3 years after I bought it. Its fast and reliable and can produce brilliant quality images.
The new camera (an EOS 500D) has a few advantages though. First, it has almost twice as many pixels (but I have never seen more pixels as necessarily critical). More importantly it has a high definition movie mode, live preview, better low light performance, a much bigger and better display, an image stabilised lens, and a few other enhancements.
Ironically this has given the dSLR feature parity with many compact cameras which have had most of those features (in some form) all along! But compact cameras really just can't compete for real photography. I had to use two of them (a Canon and a Kodak) recently and the speed, responsiveness, flexibility and quality was rubbish compared with even my old dSLR. In ideal conditions (plenty of light, slow moving objects, etc) they are OK but push the limits even slightly and they often don't work well at all.
A great example of the superiority of the SLR was an air show I took photos at a few years back. The previous show I had used a fairly advanced (at the time) compact camera (a Canon G6) and the photos were OK but lack of magnification (with just a 4x zoom), inferior performance at higher sensitivity settings, and slow general responsiveness meant none of my photos were that great.
When I used the SLR instead things were so much better. The speed meant all the aircraft were right in the middle of the frame instead of escaping out the front! And the long telephoto (equivalent 450mm) meant I could zoom right into the action, including shots of the pilots actually sitting in the aircraft.
So when the 500D turns up (it will this time because I have used a reliable trader) I expect that my photos will be even better, especially in low light, but also I should be able to create some nice high definition movies. They should look great on my plasma TV!
I do have a lot of expensive toys but at least I use them a lot. The previous camera had done 15,000 photos (Canon say the shutter is good for over 100,000) so it go a lot of work. I also upgraded my telephoto zoom lens which I had been using for 25 years. It still worked fine but I got the opportunity to do a minor upgrade for almost nothing so I took it.
I've owned a lot of Canon (film and digital) cameras over the years: An AL-1, an A-1, two T-90s (that's another story), and EOS-5, an EOS 350D and now the EOS 500D. They have all been brilliantly reliable and easy to use. If the 500D is up to this standard I will be happy enough! I'll do a review once I've used it for a few weeks.
On Saturday I went to Carisbrook (Dunedin's main sports ground, aka "the House of Pain") and watched the big rugby test between the All Blacks and France. Unfortunately the final score wasn't what we were really wanting but the experience was definitely worthwhile.
OK, so it cost $200 for the whole family and they weren't even great seats and there was a big pool of beer on the ground and people were peeing against the wall behind us and there was a fight going on at the end and the All Blacks lost, but apart from that it was great!
No matter what the bad points of the experience it still was a real experience more than watching the game on tv would ever be. And, of course, Dunedin provided some great weather and good ground conditions unlike Auckland where there would have been 6 inches of rain or Wellington where there would be a 100 knot wind (just joking).
It was the last big game at Carisbrook because Dunedin is building a new, modern, roofed stadium which will be ready for the next Rugby World Cup being played in New Zealand.
Many people here disagree with the idea of building the new stadium, mainly because they don't want to pay for it through their rates, but I have supported it because I think a smaller city like ours needs to move forward or be left behind.
But after this Carisbrook experience (and many others as well in the past) I do wonder whether it might have been better to modernise our existing ground. That way we could save some money and maintain the history and atmosphere of Carisbrook. On the other hand, the decision has been made, and there's no point in worrying about something which is inevitable.
I'm sure the new stadium will be nice and comfortable and provide great playing conditions in any weather but it will never be the same as the House of Pain!
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