Monday, January 30, 2006
Flickr page up and running.
Finally I have my flickr page up and running! My first set up is from my ski trip in Soll, Austria. Between this, this blog and my new skype account, I'm really getting into this web 2.0 crap!
A splash of colour
Well, I finally got around to adding a few images to my page.
The background pic on my header should hopefully read "Miles away from home", or it's closest equivalent in Chinese.
The literal translation of the characters on the red "board" are
The background pic on my header should hopefully read "Miles away from home", or it's closest equivalent in Chinese.
The literal translation of the characters on the red "board" are
游: to swim, float, drift, wander, roam
子: offspring, child, fruit, seed of
迹: traces, impressions, footprints
重: heavy, weighty, double
which goes together as "when a man leaves home to go to places far away, those places contain his footmark", which is from a poem I think. probably sounds better in the original!
The background image on the page is made up of the chinese character for "a great distance" and a dragon etching that I have on the back cover of my phone which I got done in Hong Kong last August (the original is here, if you want a look).
Ireland and Iran ganging up on Israel?
I was reading the Sunday Times yesterday, and this is what caught my eye on the front page:
Ireland as bad as Iran, says top Sharon man
An advisor to Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, compared Ireland's stance on Israel to that of the President of Iran, who said last year that Israel must be wiped off the map.
The comments were made in a Jewish newspaper in response to views expressed by an aide to the Taoiseach Bertie Ahearn, who had declined to officially support Zionist claims to the territory dating back thousands of years.
..............
.....the call was taken by an official in the taoiseach's office who recieved questions by email, including a request for Ireland to officially support the Zionist claim of historical rights dating back over 3,000 years.
John Kennedy, an official in the taoiseach's office was quoted as saying "support for israel isn't premised on Zionism...Zionism is essentially a religios issue - a faith issue. I don't think you're going to get the taoiseach to take a position on that. Zionism is not part of relevant policy here"
..............
Kennedy's refusal to take a stand provoked outrage from [Raanan] Gissin, who compared Ireland's position to that of Ahmadinejad.
"it is not enough," he told the Jewish Telegraph. "There is a culture of hatred that says the Jews have no right to live here as an entity. We are here as our birthright and not as a conqueror. If you don't support Zionism, ipso facto you are actually saying, in the logical progression, we don't support the right of the Jewish people to have a state of their own in their ancestral homeland."
"Ahmadinejad is trying to erase Israel off the map by not recognizing that Jews have a birthright. We are having to teach the same lessons to Ahmadinejad and Ireland"
So, "we don't have a position on Zionism" equates to "we hate all Jews and want to wipe them off the map", in this guy's logical progression. This is Republican-style debating tactics: exaggerate the opponent's statements and then scream blue bloody murder. This is the same logic that turns a Democrat's "we think the government is taking the wrong approach in iraq" to "You're unpatriotic and probably supporting the terrorists yourself!".
Let's look at that main argument again actually. "If you don't support Zionism, [you] don't support the right of the Jewish people to have a state of their own in their ancestral homeland." So how about aethiests? Using this guy's own type of logic, aethists aren't zionists and so don't have this automatic right to stay in Israel, so it's OK to get rid of them. Also, when he says "We are here as our birthright and not as a conqueror.", you can argue that point as well. OK, they've been there 3,000 years which is a good enough time to grab squatter's rights, but they weren't the first ppl there. Jewish history generally starts about 1800BC, when God gave the land of Caanan to Abraham. Thing is, there were already people in Canaan at the time, so the eary tribe if Israel pretty much did have to conquer it to get it (I saw this on the discovery channel one time so it has to be true). So, if you use the argument "we've been there 3,000 years" then be careful of people who take a slightly longer view, lik "well, we were there 3,100 years ago, so hah!". I'm not saying that I agree with this argument, but if you're going to engage in historical biggerdickism, then be careful of people who take a longer-term view than you.
This guy has also obviously done his homework too, as the article subtly goes on to point out.
"We never gave up our claim and our right, as the Irish would never give up the claim of what was historically Irish territory even though it's under the control of Great Britain"
Ireland renounced the constitutional claim over the six counties of Northern Ireland in 1998 as part of the peace process.
Anyway, let's assue that Mr. Gissin is right, Ireland is as bad as Iran. Let's go through some reasons why the Israelis can sleep safely in their beds over this one.
About the biggest thing Ireland and Iran have in common here is that they come just before Israel in an alphabetical listing of the world's countries. Then again, maybe this is an anti-Zionist plot too. I think tho that the Israeli government can safely concentrate on what they're going to do about Hamas getting into power in Palestine without looking over their shoulder for ravening hordes of bloodthirsty hurley-wielding celtic warriors ravaging Haifa and Tel Aviv from the sea in their tricolour-draped longboats....
The original Jewish Telegraph article is given here, and some other comments on it are here
Ireland as bad as Iran, says top Sharon man
An advisor to Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, compared Ireland's stance on Israel to that of the President of Iran, who said last year that Israel must be wiped off the map.
The comments were made in a Jewish newspaper in response to views expressed by an aide to the Taoiseach Bertie Ahearn, who had declined to officially support Zionist claims to the territory dating back thousands of years.
..............
.....the call was taken by an official in the taoiseach's office who recieved questions by email, including a request for Ireland to officially support the Zionist claim of historical rights dating back over 3,000 years.
John Kennedy, an official in the taoiseach's office was quoted as saying "support for israel isn't premised on Zionism...Zionism is essentially a religios issue - a faith issue. I don't think you're going to get the taoiseach to take a position on that. Zionism is not part of relevant policy here"
..............
Kennedy's refusal to take a stand provoked outrage from [Raanan] Gissin, who compared Ireland's position to that of Ahmadinejad.
"it is not enough," he told the Jewish Telegraph. "There is a culture of hatred that says the Jews have no right to live here as an entity. We are here as our birthright and not as a conqueror. If you don't support Zionism, ipso facto you are actually saying, in the logical progression, we don't support the right of the Jewish people to have a state of their own in their ancestral homeland."
"Ahmadinejad is trying to erase Israel off the map by not recognizing that Jews have a birthright. We are having to teach the same lessons to Ahmadinejad and Ireland"
So, "we don't have a position on Zionism" equates to "we hate all Jews and want to wipe them off the map", in this guy's logical progression. This is Republican-style debating tactics: exaggerate the opponent's statements and then scream blue bloody murder. This is the same logic that turns a Democrat's "we think the government is taking the wrong approach in iraq" to "You're unpatriotic and probably supporting the terrorists yourself!".
Let's look at that main argument again actually. "If you don't support Zionism, [you] don't support the right of the Jewish people to have a state of their own in their ancestral homeland." So how about aethiests? Using this guy's own type of logic, aethists aren't zionists and so don't have this automatic right to stay in Israel, so it's OK to get rid of them. Also, when he says "We are here as our birthright and not as a conqueror.", you can argue that point as well. OK, they've been there 3,000 years which is a good enough time to grab squatter's rights, but they weren't the first ppl there. Jewish history generally starts about 1800BC, when God gave the land of Caanan to Abraham. Thing is, there were already people in Canaan at the time, so the eary tribe if Israel pretty much did have to conquer it to get it (I saw this on the discovery channel one time so it has to be true). So, if you use the argument "we've been there 3,000 years" then be careful of people who take a slightly longer view, lik "well, we were there 3,100 years ago, so hah!". I'm not saying that I agree with this argument, but if you're going to engage in historical biggerdickism, then be careful of people who take a longer-term view than you.
This guy has also obviously done his homework too, as the article subtly goes on to point out.
"We never gave up our claim and our right, as the Irish would never give up the claim of what was historically Irish territory even though it's under the control of Great Britain"
Ireland renounced the constitutional claim over the six counties of Northern Ireland in 1998 as part of the peace process.
Anyway, let's assue that Mr. Gissin is right, Ireland is as bad as Iran. Let's go through some reasons why the Israelis can sleep safely in their beds over this one.
- Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons in secret (and getting in a bit of trouble for it). The Irish government can't even get a light rail system for dublin built on time, on budget, and without needing to rip up 1/3 of it to repair afterwards.
- Iran has a huge standing army. Ireland has enough troops to stage a St Patrick's day parade and do a bit of Peacekeeping for the UN (and even then the UN normally have to loan us a few vehicles to get around in).
- Iran has a religious fundamentalist leadership who are dedicated in their beliefs and convictions. The irish government's only dedication is to getting re-elected, apart from that they are all things to all men (and often all at the same time).
- the only risk Israel ever has of an Irish invasion is if we get drawn in the same group in the World Cup qualifiers again, and even then the worst-case scenario is a severe shortage of alcohol in the country the week after the match.
About the biggest thing Ireland and Iran have in common here is that they come just before Israel in an alphabetical listing of the world's countries. Then again, maybe this is an anti-Zionist plot too. I think tho that the Israeli government can safely concentrate on what they're going to do about Hamas getting into power in Palestine without looking over their shoulder for ravening hordes of bloodthirsty hurley-wielding celtic warriors ravaging Haifa and Tel Aviv from the sea in their tricolour-draped longboats....
The original Jewish Telegraph article is given here, and some other comments on it are here
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Gwai Lo!
At least I know in advance what I'm going to be called over in China:
:-)
Or more likely, seeing as I'll be in mandarin-speaking territory, I'll be a guizi (鬼子, "ghost") or yang guizi ("ocean ghost")
:-)
Or more likely, seeing as I'll be in mandarin-speaking territory, I'll be a guizi (鬼子, "ghost") or yang guizi ("ocean ghost")
恭喜發財!
Happy Chinese New Year! :-)
Looks like the Chinese new year festival is 2 weeks long, so I'll be over there for some of it anyway, like the lantern Festival :-)
D-7
This time next week I'll be in China. Sort of a scary thought! The trip is finally happening, no turning back now. I'm looking at my bed here and it's covered in clothes to take back up to dublin with me, and two big-ass bags to put them in. I'm not sure how much of this stuff I'll actually be taking yet, but my plan is to bring two bags with me, one full and one half-full. On the way back then, the half-full one can be stuffed with pressies. Not sure what my weight allowance is tho, seeing as I'll have 10kg of laptop with me too!
I had my last night out in waterford last night anyway. I was thinking it's going to be sort of wierd not going to Geoffs for like 11 weeks, but then I realised that it won't be that unprecedented. I mean, last year there were stretches of nearly two months where I didn't go out there either, between me travelling and the weekends where none of the others wer going out and I didn't fancy the €30 taxi fare home if I was pretty much heading out on mny own. Can't remember the last time I was out in The Forum actually. So, it's not like I'll be missing a huge chunk of my life there! Didn't end up going ther last night either, as one of the lads has recently re-entered the world of singledom and didn't really fancy it. I dind't mind, it's not like I was out on the pull or anything anyway (not that it makes a difference to the end result whether I'm on the pull or not!).
It's sort of strange tho, it seems that everyone else is more excited about me going than I am! I've been getting all sorts of advice on what to buy when I'm there (pearls and jade are the big things, apparently), what to eat, where to go see and all that. I'm not really thinking that far ahead yet, I'm just planning on getting there, getting settled in with work and then evaluating my options from there. It's almost strange tho, that I'm not as excited about it as ppl seem to think I should be. Then again, Ive never been the jumping-up-and-down-screaming type of person anyway. About the only time I rememeber having the "can't sleep with the anticipation" type thing is when I was going to italy the first time, which was pretty much my first big holiday away from home without parental supervision. Possibly had a litle bit of it too when I was going to Poland back in '00, but then again the whole still thinking I was in love with Andrea thing was probably a factor there too (one of my big all-time regrets is lacking the cojones to actually do anything about it on that trip).
Anyway, I think a lot of ppl are hearing that I'm going for 2 months and are sort of thinking of it as a 2-month holiday, but the only "holiday time" I'll really have will be the weekends. I'm defintely not going to make the same mistake we made in california when we were there for 6 weeks! Then, we were just hanging around for most of the weekends, thinking "ah, we have plenty of time to do the tourist thing", then suddenly we realise "crap, we only have one weekend left and we still have to do the pressie shopping for the people back home!" I'm not saying we did nothing, but we could have done more - we never got to go to Alcatraz for example. This trip, I'm dropping my bags off in the apartment and heading straight out!
Anyway, time to go back to the packing.......
I had my last night out in waterford last night anyway. I was thinking it's going to be sort of wierd not going to Geoffs for like 11 weeks, but then I realised that it won't be that unprecedented. I mean, last year there were stretches of nearly two months where I didn't go out there either, between me travelling and the weekends where none of the others wer going out and I didn't fancy the €30 taxi fare home if I was pretty much heading out on mny own. Can't remember the last time I was out in The Forum actually. So, it's not like I'll be missing a huge chunk of my life there! Didn't end up going ther last night either, as one of the lads has recently re-entered the world of singledom and didn't really fancy it. I dind't mind, it's not like I was out on the pull or anything anyway (not that it makes a difference to the end result whether I'm on the pull or not!).
It's sort of strange tho, it seems that everyone else is more excited about me going than I am! I've been getting all sorts of advice on what to buy when I'm there (pearls and jade are the big things, apparently), what to eat, where to go see and all that. I'm not really thinking that far ahead yet, I'm just planning on getting there, getting settled in with work and then evaluating my options from there. It's almost strange tho, that I'm not as excited about it as ppl seem to think I should be. Then again, Ive never been the jumping-up-and-down-screaming type of person anyway. About the only time I rememeber having the "can't sleep with the anticipation" type thing is when I was going to italy the first time, which was pretty much my first big holiday away from home without parental supervision. Possibly had a litle bit of it too when I was going to Poland back in '00, but then again the whole still thinking I was in love with Andrea thing was probably a factor there too (one of my big all-time regrets is lacking the cojones to actually do anything about it on that trip).
Anyway, I think a lot of ppl are hearing that I'm going for 2 months and are sort of thinking of it as a 2-month holiday, but the only "holiday time" I'll really have will be the weekends. I'm defintely not going to make the same mistake we made in california when we were there for 6 weeks! Then, we were just hanging around for most of the weekends, thinking "ah, we have plenty of time to do the tourist thing", then suddenly we realise "crap, we only have one weekend left and we still have to do the pressie shopping for the people back home!" I'm not saying we did nothing, but we could have done more - we never got to go to Alcatraz for example. This trip, I'm dropping my bags off in the apartment and heading straight out!
Anyway, time to go back to the packing.......
Friday, January 27, 2006
New chinese google site
Reading the NY Times today, it looks like Google have opened up a chinese web site, http://www.google.cn/, with a few limitations compared the normal google. From the article:
In an effort to cope with China's increasingly pervasive Internet controls, Google said Tuesday that it would introduce a search engine here this week that excludes e-mail messaging and the ability to create blogs.
Google officials said the new search engine, Google.cn, was created partly as a way to avoid potential legal conflicts with the Chinese government, which has become much more sophisticated at policing and monitoring material appearing on the Internet.
Looks like my internet surfing in Beijing is going to be a bit more curtailed than it normally is! Lots of people seem to be complaining about the type of things the chinese govt tries to censor on the web. Well, so long as online games like BF2 still work, then I should be ok! Hmm, wonder if you're playing BF2 and the chinese side are getting their ass kicked, does the game suddenly drop off, or the opposing team start getting serious lag time? Must try that out.....
In an effort to cope with China's increasingly pervasive Internet controls, Google said Tuesday that it would introduce a search engine here this week that excludes e-mail messaging and the ability to create blogs.
Google officials said the new search engine, Google.cn, was created partly as a way to avoid potential legal conflicts with the Chinese government, which has become much more sophisticated at policing and monitoring material appearing on the Internet.
Looks like my internet surfing in Beijing is going to be a bit more curtailed than it normally is! Lots of people seem to be complaining about the type of things the chinese govt tries to censor on the web. Well, so long as online games like BF2 still work, then I should be ok! Hmm, wonder if you're playing BF2 and the chinese side are getting their ass kicked, does the game suddenly drop off, or the opposing team start getting serious lag time? Must try that out.....
Thursday, January 26, 2006
New video file encoding - OGM
Here's one that I haven't hit before. I was downloading a movie off BitTorrent last night (won't say which 'cos I don't want to get sued), and found when it was down that it was
I did a quick google search on it, and found the following:
"Ogg Media (.OGM) files are a far more recent wrapper format than .AVI. Usually, they contain either DivX or XviD encoded video streams. .OGM files are becoming popular as they are far more adept at supporing multiple audio and subtitle streams than .AVI. As with .AVI files,you must have the codecs needed by the contained streams to play these files. "
You can get the codec for it here, and once you install it the file should open in Windows Media Player. First time you click on it, WMP will protest a bit, saying that "I don't rcognize this file type but I'll try to play it anyway". Just ignore it and play away! :-)
I have to admit I've never heard of this before - I'd heard of Ogg audio files before, but not Ogg video. It seems to have a slightly better compression rate as well - 620Mb for a 1h56m movie, as opposed to another flick I have here which is 699Mb AVi file for a 1h35m movie. Could be just whatever settings the dude who encoded it used I guess tho.
blah.ogm. I assumed that OGM was another DVD movie format (like VOB or something), so I tried opening it in WinDVD, but no dice. I did a quick google search on it, and found the following:
"Ogg Media (.OGM) files are a far more recent wrapper format than .AVI. Usually, they contain either DivX or XviD encoded video streams. .OGM files are becoming popular as they are far more adept at supporing multiple audio and subtitle streams than .AVI. As with .AVI files,you must have the codecs needed by the contained streams to play these files. "
You can get the codec for it here, and once you install it the file should open in Windows Media Player. First time you click on it, WMP will protest a bit, saying that "I don't rcognize this file type but I'll try to play it anyway". Just ignore it and play away! :-)
I have to admit I've never heard of this before - I'd heard of Ogg audio files before, but not Ogg video. It seems to have a slightly better compression rate as well - 620Mb for a 1h56m movie, as opposed to another flick I have here which is 699Mb AVi file for a 1h35m movie. Could be just whatever settings the dude who encoded it used I guess tho.
Ryanair at it again.
It looks like ryanair are at the cost cutting again. according to the news today. Seems that people are going to be charged for checking in luggage now! So if you have a bag to check in, it'll cost you up to an extra €7, but if you only have hand luggage you can check in online and avoid the queue at the airport. Normally when I fly ryanair I'm only going off for the weekend somewhere so I'd only ever have hand luggage anyway, so this'll be good for me (as a guy I can get away with one change of clothes for the weekend), but for families heading off on holidays it's going to be a serious bummer - one article I read stated "In future, a couple travelling to France or Spain could end up paying an extra £110 on a round trip if they take just one suitcase weighing 30kg.*". They reckon tho that they'll save/make enough money on this to be able to afford to drop their prices overall by about €3.50 a journey. So what will that mean for the flights they used to adveretise for 1c? Will they now give it to you for free and pay €3.49 towards your airport tax?
Michael O'Leary's comment on the whole thing is very telling tho - "Mr. O'Leary has described the checking in of baggage as a throwback to the "era of ocean liners"". To be honest I don't really like the guy's attitude. After all the little tricks that ryanair have pulled in the past, like taking "shortcuts" over north dublin housing estates on the way into dublin airport, letting people sit on the toilets, and of course O'Leary's buying a taxi license for his merc so he can use the bus lanes, you just get the feeling that he's a bit too mercenary. I reckon if he thought he could get away with it he'd put hanging straps on the planes like there are on buses so that they can fit in standing passengers.
Ryanair always pride themslves on being the "low fares" airline, but they also have a habit of gouging you on return journeys - like paying €1 on the way out somewhere and then having to pay €120 on the way back. What a lot of ppl seem to forget when they go "ooh look, flights for €1!" is that you still have to pay airport tax regardless, and then there's the hidden cost of getting from ryanair's ass-end-of-nowhere airport to the actual city you wanted to fly into! I got to Belgium to visit my friend Sara a lot, and a lot of times it's just as cheap to fly Aer Lingus into Zaventem as it is to fly Ryanair to Charleroi and have to take the 1hr bus journey into town.
The MSNBC article has an interesting angle on the hand luggage allowance though:
Ryanair passengers are allowed to carry 10kg as hand luggage – which Flybe has estimated equates to "two pairs of jeans, two jumpers, one pair of trainers, four T-shirts, underwear (unspecified), a make-up bag, a toiletries bag, a belt and hair straighteners."
"Unspecified" underwear? At least they're not telling us what we have to wear now anyway. And if you're a guy and not in posession of such items as a hair straightner or make-up bag, does that mean we can shove in an extra t-shirt & stuff?
Michael O'Leary's comment on the whole thing is very telling tho - "Mr. O'Leary has described the checking in of baggage as a throwback to the "era of ocean liners"". To be honest I don't really like the guy's attitude. After all the little tricks that ryanair have pulled in the past, like taking "shortcuts" over north dublin housing estates on the way into dublin airport, letting people sit on the toilets, and of course O'Leary's buying a taxi license for his merc so he can use the bus lanes, you just get the feeling that he's a bit too mercenary. I reckon if he thought he could get away with it he'd put hanging straps on the planes like there are on buses so that they can fit in standing passengers.
Ryanair always pride themslves on being the "low fares" airline, but they also have a habit of gouging you on return journeys - like paying €1 on the way out somewhere and then having to pay €120 on the way back. What a lot of ppl seem to forget when they go "ooh look, flights for €1!" is that you still have to pay airport tax regardless, and then there's the hidden cost of getting from ryanair's ass-end-of-nowhere airport to the actual city you wanted to fly into! I got to Belgium to visit my friend Sara a lot, and a lot of times it's just as cheap to fly Aer Lingus into Zaventem as it is to fly Ryanair to Charleroi and have to take the 1hr bus journey into town.
The MSNBC article has an interesting angle on the hand luggage allowance though:
Ryanair passengers are allowed to carry 10kg as hand luggage – which Flybe has estimated equates to "two pairs of jeans, two jumpers, one pair of trainers, four T-shirts, underwear (unspecified), a make-up bag, a toiletries bag, a belt and hair straighteners."
"Unspecified" underwear? At least they're not telling us what we have to wear now anyway. And if you're a guy and not in posession of such items as a hair straightner or make-up bag, does that mean we can shove in an extra t-shirt & stuff?
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
got it!
Well, the visa is sorted at last. I was hoping for a multi-entry visa, but a dual entry will do me well enough. Reckon there's enough to see in China itself to keep me busy for all the weeknds I'm there anyway! :-) So, got the visa this morning, got a big-ass guide book for Beijing, got my cash (RMB4600 or about €500 worth - exchange rate is 9.4 to the euro, should have got it last week when it was at 9.7!), plane tickets should be arriving any day as well, so we're all good to go!
I also have my arrival sorted as well, there'll be a taxi picking me up from the airport to the apartmnt, then an agent will met me to show me around the apartment and hand over the keys. I'm apparently also getting a local guide assigned to me to "help me adapt to local culture and practise". My own personal guide! Cool! :-)
To be honest, the first time I really got excited about this trip was when I opened the passport and saw the words "Chinese Visa" and my name on the same document! Up until now I've sort of not really believed that the thing is really going to happen, thanks to my company raising my hopes a good few times over the last few years re: travel, pay rises, promotions etc, and all of them falling through. As the boss said yesterday, "this trip is partly in recognition of all the hard work you've done the last few years" - damn straight it is! If they cancel on me at this stage then Tom is getting my resignation letter on his desk within half an hour.
Looks like I'm getting in by the skin of my teeth as well- there was a mail sent around the other day saying "due to budget cuts, all travel and rotations are cancelled for Q4". Seeing as we just announced another quarterly loss last night (only $223m in the red!) that's not going to change any time soon! As one of the lads said here yesterday, "you mightn't have a department to come back to when you get back", but if they decide to move all our work to Prague sooner rather then later, well, my answer is "thanks for the holiday, and I'll have my redundancy check please!"
Monday, January 23, 2006
sick laptop
Hmm, this isn't good. I think my laptop is just aobut rady to have a meltdown. I've known for a while that I needed a new AC adaptor, and a new CD drive door, and I had my suspicions about the CPU fan due to hearing the odd funny noise from it, there's the gfx driver crashing every now and then, and the 'e' key started sticking fri night, but now something else has come along. I booted up my machine in linux a while ago, and now I'm seeing this message:
Thinking that I'm heading for some serious issues here soon! Couldn't have come at a worse time either - two weeks before I'm due to head off for two months! For the last while I've been pretty much running the laptop 24/7 what with bittorrenting down stuff and all, so things are starting to wear out. Going to have to be a bit more careful for a while! orderd th AC adaptor anyway, hopefully it'll arrive before I head off to China!
Message from syslogd@area51 at Mon Jan 23 15:13:34 2006 ...
area51 kernel: CPU#1: Running in modulated clock mode
Message from syslogd@area51 at Mon Jan 23 15:13:34 2006 ...
area51 kernel: CPU#1: Temperature above threshold
Thinking that I'm heading for some serious issues here soon! Couldn't have come at a worse time either - two weeks before I'm due to head off for two months! For the last while I've been pretty much running the laptop 24/7 what with bittorrenting down stuff and all, so things are starting to wear out. Going to have to be a bit more careful for a while! orderd th AC adaptor anyway, hopefully it'll arrive before I head off to China!
Podcasts: Ricky Gervais & learning chinese
Well, I finally decided to take a spin around the wierd and wonderful world of podcasts on friday evening, as some friends had been raving on about the Ricky Gervais podcasts. Went on, downloaded them, played them on the way down to galway on the train. Maybe it's cos I was never a real big fan of the office, but I couldn't see what the big deal was, how this got to be "the #1 podcast in the world". It basically seems to conist of one guy (Karl) talking on about random shyte in a way that makes him out to be a bit of a thicko, and Ricky Gervais and some other guy (Steve) making fun of him and calling him a thicko! Seems the biggest contribution Gervais makes is laughing at the other guy!
After that I went and got an audiobook entitled "In-flight mandarin chinese: learn before you land". It's basically an hour-long book on learning useful chinese phrases etc, and you're supposed to listen to it on the flight on the way over. Well, it's a good job that it's a 10-11hr flight, 'cos with the speed they go through the phrases there's no way you'd pick it up in one or two listens, unless you had a photographic memory (or whatever the audio equivalent is). Also, like most of these type of linguaphone things, they give you phrases in isolation. I mean, there's not much point in learning how to say "can you recommend me any good restaurants around here?" if you can't understand the bloody reply!
There is some useful stuff in it too tho, so I will hopefully get something out of it. Basically listened though the whole thing the first time without even trying to memorize anything, going to do that a few times before I start trying to commit stuff to memory. It didn't really help as well that I had a bit of difficulty hearing everything on the train over the sounds of the group of dubs sitting in the same train carriage on the way back from galway. There may be one or two things I'll miss when I go away, but hearing "Staahree buuud!" isn't on of them!
One thing I realised as well listning to the taps as well was that I thought I was off to a good start with knowing how to say "please", "thank you", "hello", "goodbye" and "happy new year" in chinese, but then I go listening to the audiobook and realise that while I knew them from being in Hong Kong, ppl in Hong Kong speak Cantonese and ppl in Beijing speak Mandarin! The only phrase that was the same was "Ni Hau!".
After that I went and got an audiobook entitled "In-flight mandarin chinese: learn before you land". It's basically an hour-long book on learning useful chinese phrases etc, and you're supposed to listen to it on the flight on the way over. Well, it's a good job that it's a 10-11hr flight, 'cos with the speed they go through the phrases there's no way you'd pick it up in one or two listens, unless you had a photographic memory (or whatever the audio equivalent is). Also, like most of these type of linguaphone things, they give you phrases in isolation. I mean, there's not much point in learning how to say "can you recommend me any good restaurants around here?" if you can't understand the bloody reply!
There is some useful stuff in it too tho, so I will hopefully get something out of it. Basically listened though the whole thing the first time without even trying to memorize anything, going to do that a few times before I start trying to commit stuff to memory. It didn't really help as well that I had a bit of difficulty hearing everything on the train over the sounds of the group of dubs sitting in the same train carriage on the way back from galway. There may be one or two things I'll miss when I go away, but hearing "Staahree buuud!" isn't on of them!
One thing I realised as well listning to the taps as well was that I thought I was off to a good start with knowing how to say "please", "thank you", "hello", "goodbye" and "happy new year" in chinese, but then I go listening to the audiobook and realise that while I knew them from being in Hong Kong, ppl in Hong Kong speak Cantonese and ppl in Beijing speak Mandarin! The only phrase that was the same was "Ni Hau!".
Friday, January 20, 2006
Iraqi Invasion: A Text Misadventure
I found this liked of boingboing a few minutes ago: Iraqi Invasion: A Text Misadventure. The Good stuff! :-)
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Flights are booked!
....I think. I rang up AMEX this afternoon and asked to have my provisional booking switched to a full booking (as in actually buy the damn thing). The guy on the other end of the phone took my provisional booking number and my expense request number and said he'd get back to me. Hasn't happened yet. I went on to the reservations web site anyway and tried to look up my provisional booking, and it wasn't there, so I'm going to take that as a good sign.....
(later)
Ah, it's appearing up now. Looks like I'm flying on a Boeing 777 both ways, and have an aisle seat on the way over but a window seat on the way back. I just hope the meal is a bit better planned than the last time I flew BA internationally. last time I went on the LHR-SFO run, they served chicken kiev. Imagine, 300-odd people, in a pressurized metal container for 10hrs, eating garlic........ The ppl I felt really sorry for was the poor sods at the arrivals gate who had to open the airplane door! :-)
(later)
Ah, it's appearing up now. Looks like I'm flying on a Boeing 777 both ways, and have an aisle seat on the way over but a window seat on the way back. I just hope the meal is a bit better planned than the last time I flew BA internationally. last time I went on the LHR-SFO run, they served chicken kiev. Imagine, 300-odd people, in a pressurized metal container for 10hrs, eating garlic........ The ppl I felt really sorry for was the poor sods at the arrivals gate who had to open the airplane door! :-)
new tag line
Thanks to Yandong at work for providing me with my new tag line! I was asking him how to translate my blog name so I could put it in an image, and he gave me this one. Apparenly it's from some poem and translates (roughly) as "a man leaves home to go to places far away, and these places contain his footmark". Sounds pretty good, so I'll keep it! :-)
Seems putting it in as just text characters isn't working in my browser, the 1st and 3rd characters aren't being recognized. Could be just windows not having the proper font glyphs, it looks fine on my Solaris machine...... Going to work on creating a new header image now, I'll try to incorporate that into it.
Seems putting it in as just text characters isn't working in my browser, the 1st and 3rd characters aren't being recognized. Could be just windows not having the proper font glyphs, it looks fine on my Solaris machine...... Going to work on creating a new header image now, I'll try to incorporate that into it.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Interesting, but a bit scary
I'm in the middle here of doing up my project plan for what I'm going to be doing in Beijing, and I stumble across this article:
Managing a Doomed Software Project: Practical Suggestions for Breaking the Bad News
Is this a sign from god or something? It seems here like I'm doing all the planning on my own: I'm trying to get discussions going on the internal aliases and end up talking to myself.
Well, if it was easy, it would have been done already by someone else I suppose.
Oh, and the full article can be found here :-)
Managing a Doomed Software Project: Practical Suggestions for Breaking the Bad News
Does this scenario sound familiar to you?
The company, department, or customer bets the farm that project X will be done by late October in order to make the Christmas sales period. Various managers assure them that this can be done. Around June, the big boss calls you into his office and explains to your team the importance of the project, its crucial nature to the business, the value of your contribution, and the importance of the deadline.
Time passes...
Sometime around July 15, you realize that there’s no way you can meet the deadline. It doesn’t matter how much overtime you work, it doesn’t matter how lucky you get—it just won’t happen.
Welcome to the doom train. All aboard.
Is this a sign from god or something? It seems here like I'm doing all the planning on my own: I'm trying to get discussions going on the internal aliases and end up talking to myself.
Well, if it was easy, it would have been done already by someone else I suppose.
Oh, and the full article can be found here :-)
Visa
Well, I have the visa application in now anyway. Took the morning off work and went in to sort it out. I got off to a great start this morning anyway - I thought I had a few passport pics left over from when I got my railcard, but I couldn't find them anywhere, so I had ot go get new ones. First place I went into told me "our camera is broke, try in next door". Next door told me they didn't do them, try Boots. Boots on grafton st told me they didn't do them either, try the camera shop opposite Tower Records. Finally got them anyway, and just got to the buss stop to catch sight of the ass end of the 46A dissapear off down the road. Good start to the day!
Finally managed to get out to the embassy around 11. I wanted to get a multi-entry 6-month visa, but yer man didn't want to give me anything more than a single entry one, so I managed to talk him up to a 3-month, 2-entry one. Looks like my plans for pissing off to japan and korea and all such places are out the window - I can pick one place and that's it. Have to go back and collect it next weds morning now - hopefully.
At least that's out of the way now anyway. I also called into Thomas cook and ordered me some foreign exchange. I only got €500 in cash, I don't want to be bringing too much into the country with me.
Oh, when I was out on Ailesbury road, I saw some pretty strange grafitti outside Donnybrok church:
A vandal with a classical education? Some drunk jesuit letting loose a bit? My latin is a bit rusty, but I think it means "God Is Love". Beats "Jesus woz ere" I guess......
Finally managed to get out to the embassy around 11. I wanted to get a multi-entry 6-month visa, but yer man didn't want to give me anything more than a single entry one, so I managed to talk him up to a 3-month, 2-entry one. Looks like my plans for pissing off to japan and korea and all such places are out the window - I can pick one place and that's it. Have to go back and collect it next weds morning now - hopefully.
At least that's out of the way now anyway. I also called into Thomas cook and ordered me some foreign exchange. I only got €500 in cash, I don't want to be bringing too much into the country with me.
Oh, when I was out on Ailesbury road, I saw some pretty strange grafitti outside Donnybrok church:
A vandal with a classical education? Some drunk jesuit letting loose a bit? My latin is a bit rusty, but I think it means "God Is Love". Beats "Jesus woz ere" I guess......
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
ouch.....
Well, I knew before I went to Austria that everyone says that you use a totally different set of muscles skiing than you do normally, but I didn't really believe it til last night. Was back playing soccer for the first time since the beginning of december, so was out of shape and out of practise, but I figured that all my exercise on the ski slope would stand me in good stead fitness-wise. Wrong! Woke up this morning felling like someone had done a leg transplant on me overnight, and swapped my pair with a 90-year-olds. Was painful walking into work this morning but I know from experience that if I don't work the stiffness out on the first day, it's only going to get worse...... Scored a cracker of a goal last night tho, one of our 4 goals, it's just too bad that the other team scored more than us.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Yipes!
Just looking at the 10-day forecast for Beijing. Highs of 4 degrees, lows of -6! Looks like I'll be bringing my ski gear with me!
Sexy Irish?
Saw this report in saturday's newspaper (hey, I'm a slow reader)
Irish seen as having gone from savage to sexy
Where once the Irish were percieved abroad as marauding savages, they now have a sex appeal of which even the italians would be proud.
So a conference in Dublin heard yesterday where academics from both literary and political fields gathered to discuss the thorny issue of "Irishness".
.......
"In the American media now, being Irish and being sexy go hand in hand," according to Dr. Ruth Barton of UCD's center for film studies. "Being Celtic is associated with a soft-centered sexuality where before it was linked with lawlessness and rebellion."
The article goes on to say tho that a lot of the "sexy" Irish are playing up the Oirish angle to enhance their appeal, like Colin Bleedin' Farrell's "bad boy dub" accent, and Pierce Brosnan's "BBC ireland" accent (my words not theirs). It also goes on about the creeping racism in ireland in the last few years, but it was the "sexier than the italians" thing that caught my eye. Granted the average irish crowd has become easier on the eye in the last few years than before, but beating the italians in the sex appeal stakes? I don't know what pubs and nightclubs the people coming to these conclusions have been going to, but I damn sure want to find out!
Website for the conference is here, for further research.
Irish seen as having gone from savage to sexy
Where once the Irish were percieved abroad as marauding savages, they now have a sex appeal of which even the italians would be proud.
So a conference in Dublin heard yesterday where academics from both literary and political fields gathered to discuss the thorny issue of "Irishness".
.......
"In the American media now, being Irish and being sexy go hand in hand," according to Dr. Ruth Barton of UCD's center for film studies. "Being Celtic is associated with a soft-centered sexuality where before it was linked with lawlessness and rebellion."
The article goes on to say tho that a lot of the "sexy" Irish are playing up the Oirish angle to enhance their appeal, like Colin Bleedin' Farrell's "bad boy dub" accent, and Pierce Brosnan's "BBC ireland" accent (my words not theirs). It also goes on about the creeping racism in ireland in the last few years, but it was the "sexier than the italians" thing that caught my eye. Granted the average irish crowd has become easier on the eye in the last few years than before, but beating the italians in the sex appeal stakes? I don't know what pubs and nightclubs the people coming to these conclusions have been going to, but I damn sure want to find out!
Website for the conference is here, for further research.
Flights sorted!
Well, I've just about got my flights sorted now.
Hmm, the letter says I'm invited for 6 months, but the flights say 2. Wonder will that be an issue?
Got quoted flights for BA, KLM and Lufthansa. BA was the cheapest, so naturally I had to go for that one. At €827 it's nearly €175 cheaper than I had down in my expense request, so that should go down well with the boss.
Lufthansa is ridiculous tho - €5,827.90? I got it quoted on Gohop for €905! I told the girl in AMEX the difference I was seeing and she went off to check was the price she was getting for executive class or something. Returned saying "nope, that's the price for economy class, exec class is nearly double that". I dunno what sort of spectaular service Lufthansa are offering for that price, but for that much money in economy I'd expect the entire economy section to myself! Maybe economy in Lufthansa is like 1st class on any other airline, which would mean that for first class you probably eat endangered animal steaks and get a complementary slave girl or something to keep as a souveneir.
Out:So return flight shoud just about get me into dublin in time to catch the last train down to waterford, if I should chose to do so. I have them provisionally booked until thursday, so I need to go off and sort out my visa now. I got the letter of welcome from the Beijing office in the fax this morning too, so might head into town early tomorrow to try to get this sorted....
DUB-LHR 04-Feb 1020-1140
LHR-PEK 04-Feb 1640-10:30 05 Feb
Back:
PEK-LHR 14-Apr 1020-1405
LHR-DUB 14-Apr 1550-1705
Hmm, the letter says I'm invited for 6 months, but the flights say 2. Wonder will that be an issue?
Got quoted flights for BA, KLM and Lufthansa. BA was the cheapest, so naturally I had to go for that one. At €827 it's nearly €175 cheaper than I had down in my expense request, so that should go down well with the boss.
Lufthansa is ridiculous tho - €5,827.90? I got it quoted on Gohop for €905! I told the girl in AMEX the difference I was seeing and she went off to check was the price she was getting for executive class or something. Returned saying "nope, that's the price for economy class, exec class is nearly double that". I dunno what sort of spectaular service Lufthansa are offering for that price, but for that much money in economy I'd expect the entire economy section to myself! Maybe economy in Lufthansa is like 1st class on any other airline, which would mean that for first class you probably eat endangered animal steaks and get a complementary slave girl or something to keep as a souveneir.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Inflation
Well, I'm back in dublin now after my weekend home, paid €24 for the train ticket and €1.10 for the 90 bus into town from Heuston. "Big deal, so what?" you say, but the last time I went home before xmas those prices were €23 and €1 respectively. Add that to the return dart ticket to work going up by 10¢ and it seems everyone in the transport sector has clubbed together to make sure that my monthly pittance (know in some circles as "wages") lasts that fraction less time each month than before. OK, maybe I can't really complain about the train cost since I'm still getting cheap fares due to getting my under-26 farecard 5 days before my 27th birthday, but it still made me start thinking about inflation. Just like paying €4.60 for what used to be a £3 pint, or €8.70 for a cinema ticket that cost €7.50 about this time last year. The films ain't gotten 16% better (King Kong was good but not that good), or the pint 18% more alcoholic, so where'd the extra dough come from? Oh yeah, inflation.
I'm no economist so I may be missing something here, but the best way I can come up with for describing inflation is "stuff costs more because the stuff you need to produce the stuff costs more" or even simpler, "everything is more expensive because everything else is more expensive". But why? Where did it start? Some reasons for prices going up I can get, like oil prices going up 'cos Katrina and the Waves flatten the Gulf Coast oil rigs, some raghead militants blow up some pipelines in Basra, or the iranians get stroppy with the UN over whether they can have nukes or not, and I can see how oil going up has a knock-on effect on the cost of transport, and everything else goes up a bit 'cos it costs more to get it from where it was made to where it was sold, but other causes of inflation leave me shaking my head. Take insurance, say. The insurance companies bump up their premiums, so it suddenly becomes more expensive for everyone to do business, so prices creep up a bit more. But why did they put it up in the first place? "Well, it costs us more to do business as well". Um, yeah, but that's 'cos of the knock-on effects of you putting up your prices last time. Nice profits this year by the way, up on last year are they? Strange that. It's like a dog chasing its tail, around and around.
Here's an idea, the insurance companies keep saying they have a responsibility to their shareholders to make profits for them each year, hence the price rises to keep earnings above the inflation they've had a big part in already causing. So how about this: anyone who buys shares in insurance company X also has to take out an insurance policy with X, and then let X up the premiums on them and leave the rest of us alone. Let's see then if the extra share money going into their pockets balances out the extra they're paying for cover.
Here's another thought. Every time something gets more expensive it's because something else has gotten more expensive first, so logically it stands to reason that somewhere back in the dim and distant past someone upped the price of something and started the whole ball rolling. Well, the second time travel is invented, someone should go back in time and kill that guy, stop the problem at its source. Then they should go and kill Adam Smith or whichever economist came up with the idea in the first place, just so no-one can go getting any bright ideas from him. There we go, sorted! Next problem please?
I'm no economist so I may be missing something here, but the best way I can come up with for describing inflation is "stuff costs more because the stuff you need to produce the stuff costs more" or even simpler, "everything is more expensive because everything else is more expensive". But why? Where did it start? Some reasons for prices going up I can get, like oil prices going up 'cos Katrina and the Waves flatten the Gulf Coast oil rigs, some raghead militants blow up some pipelines in Basra, or the iranians get stroppy with the UN over whether they can have nukes or not, and I can see how oil going up has a knock-on effect on the cost of transport, and everything else goes up a bit 'cos it costs more to get it from where it was made to where it was sold, but other causes of inflation leave me shaking my head. Take insurance, say. The insurance companies bump up their premiums, so it suddenly becomes more expensive for everyone to do business, so prices creep up a bit more. But why did they put it up in the first place? "Well, it costs us more to do business as well". Um, yeah, but that's 'cos of the knock-on effects of you putting up your prices last time. Nice profits this year by the way, up on last year are they? Strange that. It's like a dog chasing its tail, around and around.
Here's an idea, the insurance companies keep saying they have a responsibility to their shareholders to make profits for them each year, hence the price rises to keep earnings above the inflation they've had a big part in already causing. So how about this: anyone who buys shares in insurance company X also has to take out an insurance policy with X, and then let X up the premiums on them and leave the rest of us alone. Let's see then if the extra share money going into their pockets balances out the extra they're paying for cover.
Here's another thought. Every time something gets more expensive it's because something else has gotten more expensive first, so logically it stands to reason that somewhere back in the dim and distant past someone upped the price of something and started the whole ball rolling. Well, the second time travel is invented, someone should go back in time and kill that guy, stop the problem at its source. Then they should go and kill Adam Smith or whichever economist came up with the idea in the first place, just so no-one can go getting any bright ideas from him. There we go, sorted! Next problem please?
My Cat is Wierd....
For some reason recently my cat has developed the habit of sleeping in boxes and shopping bags. He's never been the sharpest tool in the shed, but this is more strangness than we've seen in a while.
Ah, I love weekends. One of the joys of being an IT geek is that you're like a doctor, you're never off-duty. My aunt calls around to the house yesterday, and in the middle of the chat she casually informs me that my cousin is having problems with his computer, would I be able to take a look. What can I say except "Sure, I'll take a look", one has to be diplomatic with one's relations after all. So, I call around to the house and take a quick look, and sure enough there's some mad processes hogging 99% of the CPU time and the virus scanner won't start up. Seems the son of the house has a habit of downloading random "interesting" software and putting it on the machine.... I took the advice of Ripley from Aliens: "Let's just lift off and nuke the thing from orbit", so wiped it and re-installed from scratch.
Oh, got this link off a friend - O'Reilly's Time Management for System Administrators. Must get that one.....
Ah, I love weekends. One of the joys of being an IT geek is that you're like a doctor, you're never off-duty. My aunt calls around to the house yesterday, and in the middle of the chat she casually informs me that my cousin is having problems with his computer, would I be able to take a look. What can I say except "Sure, I'll take a look", one has to be diplomatic with one's relations after all. So, I call around to the house and take a quick look, and sure enough there's some mad processes hogging 99% of the CPU time and the virus scanner won't start up. Seems the son of the house has a habit of downloading random "interesting" software and putting it on the machine.... I took the advice of Ripley from Aliens: "Let's just lift off and nuke the thing from orbit", so wiped it and re-installed from scratch.
Oh, got this link off a friend - O'Reilly's Time Management for System Administrators. Must get that one.....
Breaking The News
Well, I told my parents about the trip anyway. it went own better than I thought - I suppose seeing as it's a fait accompli and they can't do anything about it, and the way I sold it as being just like the San Jose trip I did last time around helped. My mother's reaction was a bit of amazement - "Beijing?", and that was about it. Went better than I thought, but the big test I guess will be the day that I leave.......
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Thoughts on the trip
Time I suppose to sort out how I'm feeling about the trip, now that it's going to happen at last. Like I said, up til I got the final "go" I didn't think it was going to happen, so it was more an academic exercise than anything else, to see how far I could push with it. Now tho, it's on and I'm committed!
One of the things I don't like about it is the "gentleman's agreement" to stay on in Sun until the end of the year. When Damo went to Prague for 6 months, he had to commit to stay with the company for at least 6 months after he came back, and on this one Im supposed to stay 10 months for the sake of 2 abroad! Well, it gives me time I suppose to get my MCSE's and the Sun Certified Sysadmin qualification - all that crap that employers never put on their job ads: "Oh yeah, I know the job ad said unix systems admin, but we really want someone with windows admin experience as well, so sorry". At one stage I was tempted to change my CV header to "Curriculum Vitae - and no I don't do windows admin"! Besides, if something big and good does fall my way, like the MS job I nearly had last year, they can't really stop me going......
Other big things on my mind about this trip I guess are the facts that this will be the longest I've ever been out of the country, and it's going to be so different from anything I've done before. I've always been a bit envious of all them ppl I know who've upped stakes and moved to other countries, and was never sure whether or not I'd actually have the cojones to do it myself when it came down to it. I don't have the most positive outlook & confidence in my own abilities, as ppl keep telling me: I always have the sneaking suspicion that I'm better than I think I am, but I can never really convince myself to fully believe it (does that make sense?). Anyway, this is the test I guess. It's going to be a total culture shock, I know that. I mean, I've been to Hong Kong before, but that was as a tourist staying in a hotel, with some friends, and as HK was a UK colony all the road signs etc were in english as well and most ppl spoke some bit of english so the language barrier wasn't too high. It's the same on any of the other hols I've been on, and even on the 6-week US trip I spoke the language (sort of) and wasn't over on my own. Now tho, I'm heading over to a place where I'm going to be living for a while, where the language or culture is totally alien to me, and the only ppl I'll know over there are maybe two engineers who I met one time before, on my turf!
Heh, I can already hear one or two folks I know reading this thinking "Oh, for god sake, stop being so negative! You'll have a great time! This is the opportunity of a lifetime, make the most out of it!". Yes, I probably will have a ball, and I'll squeeeze the most out of it that I can, but this is my blog, and my first big trip, so I'm allowed my odd bit of worrying!
One of the things I don't like about it is the "gentleman's agreement" to stay on in Sun until the end of the year. When Damo went to Prague for 6 months, he had to commit to stay with the company for at least 6 months after he came back, and on this one Im supposed to stay 10 months for the sake of 2 abroad! Well, it gives me time I suppose to get my MCSE's and the Sun Certified Sysadmin qualification - all that crap that employers never put on their job ads: "Oh yeah, I know the job ad said unix systems admin, but we really want someone with windows admin experience as well, so sorry". At one stage I was tempted to change my CV header to "Curriculum Vitae - and no I don't do windows admin"! Besides, if something big and good does fall my way, like the MS job I nearly had last year, they can't really stop me going......
Other big things on my mind about this trip I guess are the facts that this will be the longest I've ever been out of the country, and it's going to be so different from anything I've done before. I've always been a bit envious of all them ppl I know who've upped stakes and moved to other countries, and was never sure whether or not I'd actually have the cojones to do it myself when it came down to it. I don't have the most positive outlook & confidence in my own abilities, as ppl keep telling me: I always have the sneaking suspicion that I'm better than I think I am, but I can never really convince myself to fully believe it (does that make sense?). Anyway, this is the test I guess. It's going to be a total culture shock, I know that. I mean, I've been to Hong Kong before, but that was as a tourist staying in a hotel, with some friends, and as HK was a UK colony all the road signs etc were in english as well and most ppl spoke some bit of english so the language barrier wasn't too high. It's the same on any of the other hols I've been on, and even on the 6-week US trip I spoke the language (sort of) and wasn't over on my own. Now tho, I'm heading over to a place where I'm going to be living for a while, where the language or culture is totally alien to me, and the only ppl I'll know over there are maybe two engineers who I met one time before, on my turf!
Heh, I can already hear one or two folks I know reading this thinking "Oh, for god sake, stop being so negative! You'll have a great time! This is the opportunity of a lifetime, make the most out of it!". Yes, I probably will have a ball, and I'll squeeeze the most out of it that I can, but this is my blog, and my first big trip, so I'm allowed my odd bit of worrying!
The "Big Trip" explained.
Well, here I am, sitting in the waterford train with my trusty(?) laptop, with an hour to go before I get home. Might as well take the time to explain the "big trip" I mentioned earlier.
Basically, this time next month I'll be in Beijing. In fact, this time 3 weeks I'll be on the plane to Beijing! I'm not moving there for good or anything, but it's going to be a good two month stint there, a rotation program with my job, sending me over to the office there to work on a few projects. This is something I've been agitating with my boss to happen for the best part of 18 months, and it's finally come to pass. To be honest I always thought it was a long shot, as since we've never had the money for even pay rises up til last sep, there was hardly any budget there for big trips (altho it never stopped the managers swanning off to the US every few months for meetings). It seems the money is finally there anyway, so I applied for it back in November, not really thinking I'd get it. Imagine my surprise when it was provisionally approved, and I was told we just needed the big boss in the US to sign off on it! This was early december tho, and the longer she took to make the decision the more I was convinced I wouldn't get it. When I came back from my ski trip last monday, I reckoned it wasn't going to happen as if I went it was supposed to be in Feb - either it wasn't happening or they were going to push it out by a few months. Tuesday morning tho, I get the green light, and i've been running around like a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest since trying to get organized!
Thanks to my boss taking her sweet time approving it, I now have 3 weeks to get up a project plan, get my expense request in and approved, get my flights, my visa, organize & tidy up all my stuff here so I can go without things going to pot, and do all my usual work at the same time! So, to get my visa, I need my flight itinerary, to get that I need my expense request approved, and technically they don't like booking the flights until the visa is sorted. So, bit of a catch-22 - I need the flights to get the visa, but I also need the visa to get the flights! At least the expense request finally got approved on fri evening, so that's something. I went to book my flights straight away then, but it seems the ppl in AMEX are on a 9-5 day on friday as no-one was there to answer the phone. After 10 mins on hold being told that "your call is important to us", I gave up (if it was that important to them, why didn't someone pick up on the other end?). So, one hurdle over, and possibly two - the guys on the Beijing side are organizing the accommodation, I'm staying in an apartment 15mins walk from work, near the high-tech/university part of town. I'm probably going to be sharing an apartment as well with another engineer there, which will split the costs and therefore keep my boss happy. Next step, getting the visa. Apparently I need to get a letter of invitation from the office I'm going to visit before I can get it, and that should be coming through on monday.
The one bit I'm not looking forward to tho is the next step - telling the parents. One of the things about being an only child is that they can be a bit over-protective and worry a bit too much at times. I don't think my mother was overly happy with me going off skiing in case I broke something, she was a bit teary-eyed when I was going out the door, and now I'm going off to the other side of the world for two months? At least I suppose it's not like that time I nearly took the job in prague, I mean, I will be back in 8-9 weeks or so. There is precedent as well I suppose, with the 6 week trip I had to the US back in 2000. Still tho, it probably isn't going to go down well. Nothing will be really said at the time, but when I'm heading in to town with Dad I'll get the speech - "you have to look out for your own interests, don't worry about us, but your mother will be worried about you so make sure you be careful and ring home as often as you can". I got that when I was going to Austria for a week, so it'll be a big one this time! Not sure whether the short notice is a good thing or a bad thing - will be more of a shock, but will also give them less time to worry. Ah well, time will tell I guess.
I was actually looking at my expense report history when I was submitting my request, and that US trip was the last time I went abroad with the company - November 2000! So, whatever the boss says about "big opportunity, big responsbility, need to get a return on the trip" etc, I'm fecking owed this one! 4 years with no pay rises, no other recognition, well this is my payback now for sticking around!
Basically, this time next month I'll be in Beijing. In fact, this time 3 weeks I'll be on the plane to Beijing! I'm not moving there for good or anything, but it's going to be a good two month stint there, a rotation program with my job, sending me over to the office there to work on a few projects. This is something I've been agitating with my boss to happen for the best part of 18 months, and it's finally come to pass. To be honest I always thought it was a long shot, as since we've never had the money for even pay rises up til last sep, there was hardly any budget there for big trips (altho it never stopped the managers swanning off to the US every few months for meetings). It seems the money is finally there anyway, so I applied for it back in November, not really thinking I'd get it. Imagine my surprise when it was provisionally approved, and I was told we just needed the big boss in the US to sign off on it! This was early december tho, and the longer she took to make the decision the more I was convinced I wouldn't get it. When I came back from my ski trip last monday, I reckoned it wasn't going to happen as if I went it was supposed to be in Feb - either it wasn't happening or they were going to push it out by a few months. Tuesday morning tho, I get the green light, and i've been running around like a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest since trying to get organized!
Thanks to my boss taking her sweet time approving it, I now have 3 weeks to get up a project plan, get my expense request in and approved, get my flights, my visa, organize & tidy up all my stuff here so I can go without things going to pot, and do all my usual work at the same time! So, to get my visa, I need my flight itinerary, to get that I need my expense request approved, and technically they don't like booking the flights until the visa is sorted. So, bit of a catch-22 - I need the flights to get the visa, but I also need the visa to get the flights! At least the expense request finally got approved on fri evening, so that's something. I went to book my flights straight away then, but it seems the ppl in AMEX are on a 9-5 day on friday as no-one was there to answer the phone. After 10 mins on hold being told that "your call is important to us", I gave up (if it was that important to them, why didn't someone pick up on the other end?). So, one hurdle over, and possibly two - the guys on the Beijing side are organizing the accommodation, I'm staying in an apartment 15mins walk from work, near the high-tech/university part of town. I'm probably going to be sharing an apartment as well with another engineer there, which will split the costs and therefore keep my boss happy. Next step, getting the visa. Apparently I need to get a letter of invitation from the office I'm going to visit before I can get it, and that should be coming through on monday.
The one bit I'm not looking forward to tho is the next step - telling the parents. One of the things about being an only child is that they can be a bit over-protective and worry a bit too much at times. I don't think my mother was overly happy with me going off skiing in case I broke something, she was a bit teary-eyed when I was going out the door, and now I'm going off to the other side of the world for two months? At least I suppose it's not like that time I nearly took the job in prague, I mean, I will be back in 8-9 weeks or so. There is precedent as well I suppose, with the 6 week trip I had to the US back in 2000. Still tho, it probably isn't going to go down well. Nothing will be really said at the time, but when I'm heading in to town with Dad I'll get the speech - "you have to look out for your own interests, don't worry about us, but your mother will be worried about you so make sure you be careful and ring home as often as you can". I got that when I was going to Austria for a week, so it'll be a big one this time! Not sure whether the short notice is a good thing or a bad thing - will be more of a shock, but will also give them less time to worry. Ah well, time will tell I guess.
I was actually looking at my expense report history when I was submitting my request, and that US trip was the last time I went abroad with the company - November 2000! So, whatever the boss says about "big opportunity, big responsbility, need to get a return on the trip" etc, I'm fecking owed this one! 4 years with no pay rises, no other recognition, well this is my payback now for sticking around!
Friday, January 13, 2006
Friday the 13th
Hmph, typical. I had a feeling that starting a blog on Friday the 13th would be a bit of an inauspicious start! Just after posting my first entry, and the display driver on my laptop packs it in! there I was, not even sure whether the blog was working or not, and no idea how to edit it once I'd started, and boom!
Well, the machine is nearly 2 years old now, and could do with a bit of a rehaul I guess. Power cable is fraying, I lost the door of the CD drive a good while ago, and I'm not sure is it just dirt or dead pixel syndrome on the screen. The OS is getting flakey too, shuts down without warning when playing games like Battlefield 2 or when my Matrix screensaver is working (at least I hope that's a software problem and not a hardware one!). As soon as that 4Gb game is bittorrented down, this baby is getting its c: drive wiped, reformatted and reinstalled, but until then I'll have to soldier on.
First Post Ever!
Well, here we are, my first ever blog post (not counting all of the wikki pages at work!). I was hoping to get a different address, like milesfromhome or milesaway, but those names were taken already, dammit. Thanks guys, I had the background images drawn and all!
Anyway, I suppose the first thing to do is answer the question "why start blogging now?". For ages I resisted putting up a blog, as I thought I'd never have anything interesting or original to say in it, but it seems millions of people around the world are managing it every day, so why not me? Besides, I said that about putting up a web page back in the day, and I managed to find something for that (even if it hasn't been updated for a few years). I also said that if I ever managed to wangle that big trip abroad I wanted out of my boss, that I'd put up ablog about it. So, here we go!
Of course, whether anyone will ever read this or not now, well, that's another question !
Anyway, I'll introduce myself at another stage, and explain a bit more about my "big trip". In the meantime, I have to play with this blog thing, see how it works!
Anyway, I suppose the first thing to do is answer the question "why start blogging now?". For ages I resisted putting up a blog, as I thought I'd never have anything interesting or original to say in it, but it seems millions of people around the world are managing it every day, so why not me? Besides, I said that about putting up a web page back in the day, and I managed to find something for that (even if it hasn't been updated for a few years). I also said that if I ever managed to wangle that big trip abroad I wanted out of my boss, that I'd put up ablog about it. So, here we go!
Of course, whether anyone will ever read this or not now, well, that's another question !
Anyway, I'll introduce myself at another stage, and explain a bit more about my "big trip". In the meantime, I have to play with this blog thing, see how it works!
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