Hello world, and welcome to my corner of the web. This is where I write words about what I'm working on, and post photographs of things I've seen.
I'm a Software Engineer at the Wikimedia Foundation, and so of course my personal website is a wiki (running on MediaWiki). In my spare time I volunteer with WikiClubWest to work on Wikimedia projects, mostly around my family's genealogy and local Western Australian history (especially to do with Fremantle). I try to keep up with issues on all the things I maintain (but usually fail), as well as listing the software that I use.
I try to find time to work in my workshop on various woodworking projects. Recently, that's been focused on building a metalworking bench, and will soon be about a set campaign-style drawers that's in the works. I've a good-sized workshop because I don't have a car.
Travel features in my life, not because I really hugely want to go elsewhere but because I just do — and also because then I can do some interesting mapping on OpenStreetMap, and take photos for Wikimedia Commons. Sometimes I ride my bike to get there, or walk, but more often it's planes, trains and ferries.
I'm currently reading the following books: A Puritan Bohemia (Margaret Sherwood, 1896), and Arrowsmith (Anon), and Doctor Thorne (Anthony Trollop), and The Countryside Companion (Tom Stephenson).
To contact me, you can email me, find me on Matrix as '@samwilson:matrix.org', the fediverse as @samwilson@wikis.world, or Telegram as @freosam. If you want to leave a comment on this site (by creating an account), you need to know the secret code Tuart (it's not very secret, but seems to be confusing enough for most spammers).
Below are my recent blog posts.
Too many loos
Fremantle
How many bathrooms? Kevin McCloud reveals Grand Design bugbears, Caroline Davies, 3 September 2024:
He also despairs over the complexity of builds that could be much simpler. “Complexity has become a demonstration of the need to be grand,” he says.
But McCloud reveals himself as a big fan of Ikea, insisting clever designs can easily incorporate the Swedish home furnishing chain’s budget-friendly products.
“I have Ikea cupboards and drawers; the work surfaces are by Cosentino and the taps are posh. I am a fan of Ikea, the democracy of good design, and also of properly sustainable furniture, and I like doing stuff myself.”
He does seem like a fairly sensible person!
The things about bathrooms in new houses that bothers me most having an en suite right next to the main bathroom, or two doors into the same bathroom off the same passage. It just seems so unnecessary. I obviously don't really understand how most people live though, because it seems popular too.
House pump
Rockingham
· Rockingham · water ·
Wharf art
Fremantle
[ todo ] An eight-piece sculpture at OConnor Landing by Judith Forrest. Unveiled November 2022 by the mayor.
Otis and Mave
Fremantle Harbour
· Rottnest 2024 · Fremantle Harbour · cafes ·
I stopped en route for a coffee, at the new Otis and Mave Cafe in the Hooper Building. It's a nice little place, but of course I turned up just before closing time. Always the way in Fremantle in the afternoon, so I should've checked. But they could have told me before I ordered! Instead of just packing up around me and making me hurry out of there.
Anyway, I added them to the building's page. And headed to the harbour, where I found:
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The O'Connor Landing plaque
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Continued renovations of B Shed
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Areas of weak wharf (around the Welcome Walls) now properly out of bounds…
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…and with a reinforced walkway over one part.
And some more of the Welcome Walls:
Overly airtight flats
Fremantle
Research reveals how bathroom fans and sliding glass may be letting cold air into your home, Daniel Miles, Thu 15 Aug 2024:
"Heating and cooling costs are about 40 per cent of your total energy bill, and fixing leaks can reduce that by 20 per cent," he said.
"Some other homes, particularly apartments, were found to be extremely airtight, which can result in issues impacting building performance and resident health, if controlled ventilation is not included.
It's interesting that Australian houses are becoming better, but that as active ventilation is not mandatory it can actually make things worse (although it'd seem, not thermally worse, but there's a good reason to not shut the fridge door behind you…).
Book sale
UWA
I had two trips to the Save the Children book sale this weekend! Not really planned, but I'm glad I did go back because they do put out more books every day (the sale goes on until Wednesday I think). I got a few about Fremantle history, and some more Oxford World's Classics, and some random other things.
- Tull, Malcolm 1997 A Community Enterprise: The History of the Port of Fremantle, 1897 to 1997
- Hasluck, Alexandra 1955 (2002 edition) Georgiana Molloy: Portrait with Background
- Lee, Jack 1989 Rotary in Fremantle (1928–1988)
- Mann, George 1988 Over the Wire
- Hungerford, Tom 1983 Stories from Suburban Road
- Ward, Kirwan and Wroth, Bruce 1974 Fremantle Sketchbook
- Edwards, Carl 2010 Giant Lettered Sheds
- OWC 333 Sterne, Laurence A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
- OWC 573 Weaver, Robert (ed.) Canadian Short Stories
- OWC 527 Clarke, Marcus For the Term of his Natural Life
The last item I'm actually reading at the moment, having borrowed it from a friend. But as I've never seen it for sale anywhere, I figured I'd get my own copy. Especially as none of these was over $4.
For the Freo-related ones, I'm trying to come up with a good system of cataloguing on Freopedia — a way of handling a bibliography and easy citing at the same time (e.g. {{cite work}}).
Hybrid Warehouse
Fremantle
· coworking spaces · Fremantle Oval · Fremantle Prison ·
I finally got around to to trying out the new coworking space in Quarry Street. It was nice. I'm not sure how it'll go in summer, with no insulation, but it was a good place to work for this afternoon.
On my walk home I noticed a) that part of the oval wall had been taken down and was being rebuilt (although I couldn't see if there was already a concrete footing somewhere below, or if it was like the old bits of wall and built straight on the natural limestone of the hill); and b) the concrete base of the heritage-listed sewer vent (which is decidedly not a fancy art deco one like elsewhere in Perth).
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Coworking space sign
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Deconstructed wall
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Sewerage
Extracting images from PDFs
Fremantle
· PDFs · images · archiving ·
For my own reference, to extract images from a PDF into a directory called images, maintaining sequence and page numbering:
$ pdfimages -all -p example.pdf imagesNote that extracting to the current directory, with a single dot . (instead of images) can be confusing, because the images will be written there — but they'll start with a dot and so will be hidden (e.g. .-001-000.jpg, .-001-001.jpg, etc.).
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