Sam Wilson's Journal

How strange things are: How strange things are! Yesterday I was on the verge of dropping out, the meaninglessness of it all swelled up so - but fret not! an evening of friends and tea, followed by a good night's sleep, turned it all around. Now the same wrenching division…
Over the Brink: How strange things are! Yesterday I was on the verge of dropping out, the meaninglessness of it all swelled up so - but fret not! an evening of friends and tea, followed by a good night's sleep, turned it all around. Now the same wrenching division…
"The Poetics of Space": By Gaston Bachelard "Imagination augments the values of reality." -- p.3 "...they describe [the humble abode] as it actually it, without really experiencing its primitiveness, a primitiveness which belongs to all, rich and poor alike, if they are…
Attaching wooden boards to bindings.: The earliest period from which many bindings with wooden boards are extant is the twelfth/thirteenth century. These often have boards of around half an inch - "in some cases the book is thinner than the combined thickness of the two boards."1 Early…
What I Did/Read/Thought Today: Hurrying off to uni after remembering the chai & cake stall, I forgot my lunch and the honey (not sweet mate), but managed to prove to myself the wisdom in having a slow bike. [Oh how I wish I could get my digital camera to work with these uni compu…
Blackened Fingers: I began the morning in good spirits, lying watcing the grapevine outside my bedroom window, and the small bright blue patches of sky between the leaves. It didn't seem to matter if I got out of bed or not... I have this morning begun binding a bo…
Book 0.1b Complete: The loveliest thing happened this afternoon: I sat down to sewing the signatures soon after lunch, an lo! 2½ hours later I looked up! It is so nice when work occupies one so; I don't really care what I do so long as I can experience this feel…
Co-operation is better than Conflict: Working at the co-op set me thinking (and chatting with a few people) about how utterly enjoyable is work that we do from a sense of love. Fabulous! After a few hours at the co-op I went to the library to continue with Bachelard. I am finding him …
Three Things: 1. A morning of getting ready for the short, cold days ahead; as the nights grow colder and darker earlier, I find myself in need of more warmth and (some - I have none now) light: pyjamas and bike lights are in order! 2. An interesting scrabbl…
O yearning Thought!: I wonder how much of this journalling I should create? Am I to go on and on, putting down my world as it comes by me - as if it were a film and I a critic taking notes - and heedless of the reams of text, the "ocean waste and wide", that I leave beh…
Untitled: Yesterday I did interesting things with InDesign and two bits of wood. I read. I chatted with people. I investigated the bookbinding studio. All things that were good and I left campus feeling so very excited! Then: I stayed up too late, and am …
Low Brain Functionality (LBF): This really is dreadful! I am going around and around in circles with this image stuff! There is a promise that the next release of WordPress will include better photo functionality, so I think my best bet is to wait until then, and go now to find …
Silence is my vice.: A seminar by Ian Percival, a man who's life embodies so much of what is wonderful about tools, making, and what might be termed 'industrial technology'; a thoroughly inspiring talk. Then a lunch with the other post-graduate students and Ian (a usual…
A small nook to call my own.: The house/room/attic that I dream of making, inhabiting and remaking; - where is it? What will it seem like to strangers seeing it for the first time? Many articles I have read of poet-build abodes, and rarely have they captured any true poetic ima…
Another Side: I scribbled the following, sitting on the cold hard concrete of the city: This is the other side. This is the side that eschews all forms of pomposity, vanity, indeed any care taken over appearance or manner. This is the sleepin' rough, carrying…
On Writing: Around and aound I go as always, but now at least I am starting to see the pattern. For the last few days I have been in techno-mode, spending a lot of time on computers and ignoring the world. Predictably, this immersion in the web has resulted in…
Sunday in The Lab: I have spent far too long on the computer. My mind is in quite a strange state. What am I to do? All this coding suddenly seems pointless, and I want to stroll on the terrace, prehaps sit with a quiet cup of tea, or be warmed by the fire and Kea…
"Howards End": By Edward Morgan Forster "To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it." -- p.35, a thought of Margaret's. "You remember 'rent'? It was one of father's words - Rent to the ideal, to his own faith i…
In Parting: Soon I shall return to the workshop. I have books to make!…
Reading Wood: This morning, outside the workshop: "It is so very good to be back at school. Even though niether the library nor the workshop are open yet, I feel relieved, and insipired to study. It's a bit like a fraction of what Harry Potter felt when he got b…
Doubt, and Reading the Cure: A moment of doubt: I have come to the workshop this morning to work again on the scroll. I am bevelling the ends of one of the rods with my blockplane, using the bench-hook as a shooting board. I have just realised that i am wearing a groove in th…
Short Thoughts: Making, creating, working with one's hands, is a wonderous thing. An absolute requirement for being human, hugely satisfying, and I love it. Thing is, I am just as happy patching my old pair of army pants as I am working the finest wood - possibly …
Untitled: I awoke this morning with a very sore back, but got up, breakfasted, read for an hour and was out of the house by eight. I had no wish to go back to the workshop, nor to make anything; all I wanted to do was read. There is so much that I want to re…
The Quakers and Quietism: By Pamela M. Oliver INTRODUCTION: That there was a change in the nature of the Society between the years 1647 and 1742 seems indisputable. It was withdrawing from outwardly-observable religious acts or witnesses to the Truth. Was it an increase…
Untitled: I have not blogged for ages. I am sick of forcing myself to work with wood. If I were to be doing just what I want at the moment, I would not even be thinking of wood. I would be sitting in a nice place reading, or at my desk at home coding. Inst…
I'M BACK!!: I'M BACK!! Today was wonderful! I actually wanted to be in the workshop, working; amazing! I gave up on trying to work towards any particular project, and went back to the basics. I felt like I could've been in year eight! I cut a mortice and te…
Talk about Oscar Wilde!: An unexamined life may indeed not be worth living, but what of constant, total re-evaluation of everything?! Is that a state to be envied? It seems utterly unavoidable, quite outside of my control, this daily, hourly, questioning of is it worth it,…
Stylin': This morning I have been playing around with CSS. I know it doesn't look too great just now, but I'll fix it soon... maybe. I want to get back to working on my main PHP project, but it's such a drag working on it without the lovely syntax high-ligh…
The General International Standard Archival Description: The Unesco Archives Portal is a wonderful directory (among other things) to all sorts of archives and archival-related information, all over the world. I found the ISAD(G) there, and I think it will be of great value in building the structure of [a …
Internet Collaboration: The crisp morning, cold but nothing to worry about; sitting reading at 6AM quite possible, wrapped only in everything I own. I am captivated at the moment by the 'international community' (and I use this phrase sarcastically) of the web, and especia…
In The Sharehouse User Space: Doing lots of coding; not much woodworking. Doing what I want, getting stuff done, having a good time. Seems useful. Am I to continue with wood? Not thinking about it; just doing that which has my thoughts mostly. Feeling a bit guilty, but not '…
A Return to the Web: Returning to this blog after so long? What do I think I'm doing?! As if this is what it's all about! I don't want to return to this God-awful dive of diurnal dialog with myself; I don't want to say, yet again, "Ooh, yes, woodwork is grand, but sur…
On The Love of Doing Stuff Well And Caring For Things: What is it about doing things correctly that riles me up so?! Pacing backwards and forewards last night in the kitchen, finding myself thwarted at every turn by things that (I imagine) most people would have not a second glance for, let alone be so …
All that I want to do is write.: I am unsure as to just how wise this whole online journaling idea is, and yet I feel drawn to it time and time again. Why on Earth would I want the world to read what I have to write? Why do I not just write it in my [other, paper-and-ink, bound, r…
Off Again, and No More Writing.: I'm about to get on the Indian Pacific in East Perth (W.A.) to go home (home?! really? is it home?) to Canberra.Â I'll be studying, not writing (journal-wise) nor blogging.Â Seeya.…
Market Day: 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…
Yapb test: just a test, do ignore.…
End-of-term: 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.Â Thing is, I'm in here typing away here, 'cause the girls are out there talking about teaching and I've got little to…
Slow Down!: 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 insta…
Work Suspended: (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 lik…
On Photography: 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 …
Yet again, the Great Divide: 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 'out…
Nothing to say: (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 wo…
A List: August '06: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig 1975. …
Freedom is here at last: 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 gettin…
What I Saw From A CafÃ© In Fremantle: Spareparts Puppet Teatre; the now-ornamental crane at 'E' Shed; a line of billboards hiding much; and the corner of the railway station â€” these form the horizon of my view from here. There's Norfolk Pines, this cafÃ©'s umbrellas, and the aw…
Lines through the greensward: I've been walking lately. To university, to the co-op, and home again: along Sullivan's Creek I go, sort of following the bike path and generally veering off and strolling quietly through grassy, damp, tree-lined avenues. It's nice, as nice as anyt…
Sorry about this post, but...: ...I really don't like being honked at by lone occupants of four-wheel drives! Me get off the road?! Why don't they get off their stupid arses!?…
Kerrie Tucker's revamped site: During the last few days I've been working with Margo Kingstong and Kate Tucker on porting Kerrie Tucker's website to Wordpress. I've also set up the new ACT Greens online merchandise shop, Green Shop. So I've probably had about enough of sitting a…
so cold: Why oh why does Tilley's not open until nine o'clock?! Doesn't anyone in Lyneham understand the joys of escaping first thing in the morning to a nice warm cafÃ©, a good book, and the ignoring of everything one's supposed to be doing for a few hour…
The F-91W: I bought this watch when I started working at IBM, because it is such an archetype of The Digital Watch, and I like to be reminded of the Future. Some pointless facts about the F-91W: Water Resistant; Micro Light; Daily Alarm; 1/100 se…
Sitting, reading (again).: I seem to always want to return to this state: a quite chair with a pleasant outlook, and a good book. Here I am, into my second week at IBM, and I have achieved it, albeit with some detractions. The most major: I'm reading IBM Red Books. Next: th…
Blog Action Day: On October the 15th, blog about the environment — along with everyone else! Register your blog for the Blog Action Day.…
The (not so secret) lives of galaxies: Professor Mike Dopita "traces the often violent life cycle of galaxies to answer the following questions: How are galaxies formed? How is the gas transformed into stars? How do the massive Black Holes that lurk at their centres grow? What happens whe…
Ignore the caterpillars, get back to work.: I have just returned from my customary post-lunch walk around the lake. It's lovely, strolling through the hundred meters of bush that lies between the shore and the highway — I'm not being ironic, it really is lovely. I went across the bridge (t…
How CGDNs might help build a sense of belonging.: My brain is feeling pretty groggy at the moment, so excuse any pointlessness in this post. Not that there's ever any point to my posts, but that's beside the point. I'm at work, almost thinking that the afternoon's nearly half-gone and so, well, wh…
I Don't Go In Cars: I'm writing a more in-depth article on this topic at the moment, and I'll post it soon, but for now I just want to mention a couple of things. The team that I am part of at IBM looks after servers that are spread over two different data-centres, o…
Fake World DOES Contain Humans: All has gone well, since my last post, with my intra-office carlessness. My announcement ("I don't go in cars; don't ask me to.") has been met with near universal acceptance (or silence), to my great relief. I had wondered whether the conversations…
Dispatches: I've just discovered the ABC's blogs (blogs.abc.net.au) and I quite like what I've read so far. Maybe it's just the idea of far-away correspondents filing these 'letters home' that appeals. A chap with a laptop (I'd like to think he'd be writing in…
Where I Write: I have often thought that one of the greatest attractions for me to writing in ink, on paper, in a properly-bound book, is that where one writes the words is where they will remain, and the only place they will ever be. That's not the case when writ…
You can't "double your vote" in Australia: On Sunday 2007-08-20, Steve Dalton of the Gold Coast Greens posted the following: Reposting this excellent cartoon that everyone should see to get an understanding of preferential voting and why it is so important to Vote 1 Green! Excep…
That on which the coding rests: Just to intersperse this stream of codeish posts with something a little more real… I rode part of the way to work today, and then put my bicycle on the bus for the remainder of the journey. (An odd feeling, looking through the bus' windscreen …
Blog Action Day: Bloggers unite. Today is blog action day, when we write about 'the environment' in order to 'save it'. Oh yeah. Tom Worthington calls for less emails; but I concur with Paul Kingsnorth, and say: smash your computer and lock on to the nearest air…
Urban Adventure in Rotterdam: Urban Adventure in Rotterdam Not that I'm bored today at work or anything, as you can see: not posting for a month, then here I am warbling on about urban exploration! But then I would really rather be out charting the course of a drain, or sketc…
One speed: slow?: Another gap in posts for this blog; sorry. (Not that there's anyone reading this to say sorry to, but as they say: meh.) It's not that I haven't been writing lately, I have, but in places that the web doesn't reach; I've been enjoying that. But …
Turning Over an Old Leaf: So here I am, back in the office, and bored again. I have spent the morning trawling the Arts Full Text database; from the 'Notebooks' category, to 'Reading and Books', and thence to things about binding, I've been remembering that thrill of quiet…
if:book: ephemera: I'm bored and tired this Monday morning, but still I flick through my blog feeds; I found this: [if:book: ephemera] from the Institute for the Future of the Book. It's an interesting idea: that the inconsequential, unconsidered, printed matter of …
Image-Flicker v.0.3: I have finally gotten around to fixing the most major bug that's been festering in the Image Flicker documentation. Sorry for my laxity in this. To make up for being slow, I've added a widget, to make it easier to use the thing. Isn't that jolly e…
Addressbook v.1.1: Bugfix release 1.1 for Addressbook is now available from the WP plugin repository. I'll get to the outstanding feature requests soon, I promise (feel free to hassle me here though — and don't email me, it doesn't work).…
Thoughts of more deep seclusion: Monday morning. A weekend of much work and little writing, in which I thought (yet again) to chuck the blog, chuck the computer, and return to Moleskine and ink. I didn’t; I just went to work. And two comments on my last post, in as many days �…
Concatenating a PDF and a bunch of JPGs: Someone here at work wanted to know how to add a three-page PDF to a Word document, and then add a dozen photos after it, and then save the whole mess as a new PDF. I suggested ImageMagick’s convert and pdftk. Combine all the images into o…
The Food Co-op has a new domain name: The ANU Food Co-operative is now called the Food Co-op Shop, and (thanks to a pint bottle of Little Creatures Pale, and an hour or so of shuffling files around and fiddling with databases when I got home from work this evening) can now be found onlin…