Sam Wilson's Journal
This is the complete archive for 2006. [Show full posts]
I’m finished with university for the year, and that skipping calm happiness of walking into a library and being free to read whatsoever I like is mine again! O friendly days! I leave for Perth in two days, on bike and bus and train, and am getting ready in my usual half-arsed but ready too [...]
[Keywords: Uncategorised] [One comment] [Permanent link]
From Mr Tom Hodgkinson (of Idle fame), and HRH The Duke of Rothesay (lovely three-piece), comes a jolly sensible implore to slow down. May we heed it gratefully.
[Keywords: People, Speed] [No comments] [Permanent link]
New pedals for my bike. — September 15th, 2006, 10AM
Uncategorized
I installed my new pedals yesterday. There’s a picture of one of them on Wikibooks, in the Bicycling book.
[Keywords: Bicycle] [No comments] [Permanent link]
I am exhausted, but strangely not completely sick of this assignment. It’s beer o’clock, and I’m going to the pub. Part of me wants to stay and keep going—while I’m going well an’ all—but I think I’ve just deleted a function from the file I’m working on, and I didn’t notice for ten minutes. Sigh. [...]
[Keywords: technology, University] [No comments] [Permanent link]
This is the floor:
[Keywords: photography] [No comments] [Permanent link]
Bicycle — September 8th, 2006, 10AM
Uncategorized
This is a continually-modified post in which I am placing information about the tools I use for my bike. Tools first, and for which parts they’re used, then parts and the tools they need in a second table. Tools Tool Size Used for Imperial Metric Hex wrench 0.18″ 4.5mm Chainring bolts Spanner 8mm Pedal reflector [...]
[Keywords: Bicycle] [No comments] [Permanent link]
August ’06: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig 1975.
Shimano SG-X Chainrings — September 8th, 2006, 10AM
Uncategorized
What Shimano have to say about the chainrings on my bike (From bike.shimano.com; I’ve reproduced it here becuase I rather suspect they’ll move the page and the image one of these days, and I want persistent reference.): Reduced slippage under load: Shift pins and ramps are placed in the chainrings to ensure that shifts are [...]
[Keywords: Bicycle] [No comments] [Permanent link]
(So why am I saying this?) I am looking forward to the day when I will again have something worth writing about (and I’m thinking here of woodwork: one of the happiest times of wood/tech union was back in 2003 when I was working at the art school wood workshop. The web then was a [...]
[Keywords: dichotomy, technology, Woodworking] [No comments] [Permanent link]
hmwilson.archives.org.au — September 7th, 2006, 3PM
Uncategorized
I forgot to mention, a few weeks ago when I set it up, that the family archives now have an online home at hmwilson.archives.org.au. It’s for family only, but if that’s you then I will set up your account; just email me. I’m jolly excited about going back to Perth this summer and working on [...]
[Keywords: archiving, family, world wide web] [No comments] [Permanent link]
Procrastination — September 7th, 2006, 3PM
Uncategorized
I’m lost today, lost in a dull quagmire of concurrency, Ada and the oppresive weight of too much stuff. I have an assignment to do and I understand very little of it. I suspect that I could figure it out, but I can’t be bothered. If I could see clearly the important things, in life [...]
[Keywords: Bicycle, technology, Woodworking] [No comments] [Permanent link]
Often, when I’m sitting in a lecture about concurrency, say, or sketching a possible design for some program, I actively love the fountain pen that I’m using at these times. Engaging with I.T., I find such great comfort in using such an old and ‘outdated’ technology. I usuallly don’t find this particularly interesting, becuase it [...]
[Keywords: People, technology, Uncategorised, Woodworking, Work] [No comments] [Permanent link]
It seems better to not take any photos at all, or at least not to incorporate them into this text. They break up the flow (mental, not typographical, although they do that too) and distract one from reading (and me from writing, which is more to my point — nobody reads this). I’ll still take [...]
[Keywords: archiving, photography] [No comments] [Permanent link]
(From ‘Work Suspended’ and other stories written before the second world war, Evelyn Waugh, 1948 (revised edition).) “For the civilized man there are none of those swift transitions of joy and pain which possess the savage; words form slowly like pus about his hurts; there are no clean wounds for him; first a numbness, then [...]
Kingston railway station waiting room. Feeling slightly queezy from the bus, but excited also to be off with a bag, book and journal. Not that there’s much beauty in the modern transport world; the telly is on behind me, playing the most banal, hideous, daytime television — but what else is to be expected? They [...]
[Keywords: photography, Railway, Speed, Transport] [No comments] [Permanent link]
The following from Japan for Sustainability: During the planning stage for the construction of a new condominium, the prospective residents had a heated debate on whether or not an elevator should be installed. Some were opposed because once installed it would consume energy, which would mean carbon dioxide emissions. Others were in favor, insisting that [...]
[Keywords: Transport, Uncategorised] [No comments] [Permanent link]
Grepping — April 9th, 2006, 11AM
Uncategorized
Global Search Regular Expression Print. An’ there I was, thinking McKenzie Wark was aluding to some pre-1976 use of this term. ‘Course he wasn’t, A Hacker Manifesto is way fully for geeks who’d know how to search, and what to call it.
[Keywords: technology] [One comment] [Permanent link]
So, we’re all sitting around, I’m sort of pissed (from a bit of a bottol of beer, and a bit of a bottil of wine) and life’s okay. Thing is, I’m in here typing away here, ’cause the girls are out there talking about teaching and I’ve got little to say really and that’s okay [...]
[Keywords: alcohol, Canberra, joy, Posts written when drunk, rants, Uncategorised, Woodworking] [2 comments] [Permanent link]
It’s a rainy old morning in Canberra. It’s all dim and damp and cool, and all things are fairly happy. I’ve been to the garden this morning, as usual, and I’ve some photos of the garden, with Adele’s plot in the foreground, and a bit of my plot.
[Keywords: A Place of One's Own, Canberra, Gardening, O'Connor Community Garden] [No comments] [Permanent link]
Market day at uni, and the most exciting thing I can think of: that my mungbeans are up! They’re shooting forth in a little green row, cracking the clay apart, and are to me such wonderful little things. There’s not much that draws me at Market Day, on the other hand; an ominous shyness, prehaps, [...]
[Keywords: Uncategorised, University] [No comments] [Permanent link]
My new bicycle trailer — February 4th, 2006, 2PM
Uncategorized
I bought it on eBay, it arrived yesterday, and this morning we got LOTS of compost from the co-op, to take to the garden.
[Keywords: Bicycle, Gardening, Transport] [One comment] [Permanent link]
My very own garden plot — January 28th, 2006, 11AM
Uncategorized
I’ve got a community garden plot at the COGS O’Connor garden. It’s 9×5 metres, on an old tennis court, and has nothing but weeds growing on it at the moment (because I only picked up the key yesterday). A. and M. have also got plots there; we’re all neighbours in the north-east corner, and hooray [...]
[Keywords: A Place of One's Own, Gardening] [No comments] [Permanent link]
I’m about to get on the Indian Pacific in East Perth (W.A.) to go home (home?! really? is it home?) to Canberra. I’ll be studying, not writing (journal-wise) nor blogging. Seeya.
[Keywords: Uncategorised] [No comments] [Permanent link]
