The City Most Distant from Snow in the World

Now how's that for a tortured title!

Anyway .... as some of you know, I like to think of myself as a snowboarder. In my case, this means I might, if I am very lucky, get to the snow for 5 days once a year. A long time ago, I purchased a snowboard (and posted about that snowboard) for my occasional snow trips, and although it has been used a few times, it now reclines lazily on a shelf in my laundry, doing very little to earn its keep.

It occurred to me the other day while meditating on the laziness of my snowboard, that my snowboard, which currently lives in Perth, Western Australia, could well be the snowboard most distant from snow, anywhere in the world. So I tried to work out where was the most snow deprived place on earth.

As it turns out, this is not as easy as it sounds. I am around 2900km from the nearest snow (the Alpine National Park in Victoria, Australia). So I was trying to find a location more than 2900km from snow.

Anywhere in Europe is in spitting distance from snow, so I've ignored Europe in this post. Africa, one would think, is pretty snow deprived, but using the National Geographic's very cool Map Machine to work out where snow fell on an average year, I worked out that there is nowhere in Africa more distant from snow than I am. This is largely due to small area of snow fall in Kenya, Morocco and South Africa that mean that all of Africa is close to snow than me.

Some spots in Asia would seem a bit snowless, but the side is let down by Vietnam with it's occasional snowfall, Myanmar's Himalaya, and Indonesia's glaciers.

At the end of the day, the only spots I could work out that would be further from snow might be some areas in Brazil on the Eastern coast and maybe somewhere like the Cook Islands in the middle of the Pacific. Even Fiji is nearer to NZ's snow fields than I am to Australias. So there it is. Unless someone in Brazil has a snowboard in their shed, my snowboard in Perth is the world's most distant from snow. Now there's a sorry distinction.

Note: The final map on this page shows Perth (the blue flag) and range circles of 2900km around areas of snow fall in red. If a city falls inside a red circle then it is less than 2900km from snow and therefore closer to snow than Perth. Just bear in mind that from Turkey to China is range of mountains continually capped in snow, most of Europe has snow fall and nowhere in the US is more than 2000km from snow.

Attribution: I used Free Map tools with Google Maps and the National Geographic's Map Machine to decide if my snowboard was the most snow deprived.

Problems Uploading Documents with Workflow in WSS

I've been working on my first Sharepoint 2007 site. Actually, it's a WSS site as I am not using Sharepoint. The site I have created has very limited functionality, and is intended to allow the company I am working for centrally maintain a register of a certain type of action they are qualified to perform and provide a link to all of the documents related to this action, and WSS is sufficient for this.

So what I have is the Sharepoint equivalent of an Excel spreadsheet (a custom list), which lists the actions and all the associated attributes, and I have a Document Repository, broken into folders. Each document in the Document Repository has two custom attributes - a action type flag and a business unit flag. Each action in the custom list has an action type attribute and a business unit attribute, and when a user selects "Related Documents" from the customised Actions drop down for a list item, Sharepoint does a search in the Document Repository for documents where the business unit and action type flags match the data in the selected action in the custom list.

So far so good. However, to make the experience within Sharepoint similar to what the users are used to and easier, I have made a custom workflow that fires when a new document is created and works out what folder within the Document Repository the new document is being uploaded to. In other words, I am trying to make the document itself explicitly aware of its location, and specifically the folder it is in. Each of the folders in the document repository are named for one of the business units. So the idea is that the document metadata will automatically contain the business unit name that owns the document.

This is where the problem emerges. A user enters the Document Repository, and begins to upload a document. At this point, the workflow fires off. Before the workflow has completed, the screen refreshes to allow the user to edit the metadata for the document, in this case the title, name, action type flag and business unit flag. The metadata displayed is the metadata that the document was uploaded with, but meanwhile, in the background, the workflow has updated the document's business unit flag attribute. The user clicks the check in button, and because the metadata that the document had when the page was rendered and the metadata it has now the workflow is finished is different (irrespective of whether the user entered any changes for these fields), the process errors.

Server Error in '/' Application.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The file Document Repository/BusinessUnit/Document.JPG has been modified by SHAREPOINT\system on 22 May 2008 11:36:50 +0800.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: The file Document Repository/BusinessUnit/Document.JPG has been modified by SHAREPOINT\system on 22 May 2008 11:36:50 +0800.

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:


[COMException (0x81020037): The file Document Repository/BusinessUnit/Document.JPG has been modified by SHAREPOINT\system on 22 May 2008 11:36:50 +0800.]
Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequestInternalClass.AddOrUpdateItem(String bstrUrl, String bstrListName, Boolean bAdd, Boolean bSystemUpdate, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Boolean bUpdateNoVersion, Int32& plID, String& pbstrGuid, Guid pbstrNewDocId, Boolean bHasNewDocId, String bstrVersion, Object& pvarAttachmentNames, Object& pvarAttachmentContents, Object& pvarProperties, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish) +0
Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.AddOrUpdateItem(String bstrUrl, String bstrListName, Boolean bAdd, Boolean bSystemUpdate, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Boolean bUpdateNoVersion, Int32& plID, String& pbstrGuid, Guid pbstrNewDocId, Boolean bHasNewDocId, String bstrVersion, Object& pvarAttachmentNames, Object& pvarAttachmentContents, Object& pvarProperties, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish) +199

[SPException: The file Document Repository/BusinessUnit/Document.JPG has been modified by SHAREPOINT\system on 22 May 2008 11:36:50 +0800.]
Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.AddOrUpdateItem(String bstrUrl, String bstrListName, Boolean bAdd, Boolean bSystemUpdate, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Boolean bUpdateNoVersion, Int32& plID, String& pbstrGuid, Guid pbstrNewDocId, Boolean bHasNewDocId, String bstrVersion, Object& pvarAttachmentNames, Object& pvarAttachmentContents, Object& pvarProperties, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish) +240
Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.AddOrUpdateItem(Boolean bAdd, Boolean bSystem, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Boolean bNoVersion, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Guid newGuidOnAdd, Int32& ulID, Object& objAttachmentNames, Object& objAttachmentContents, Boolean suppressAfterEvents) +933
Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.UpdateInternal(Boolean bSystem, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Guid newGuidOnAdd, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish, Boolean bNoVersion, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Boolean suppressAfterEvents) +182
Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.UpdateOverwriteVersion() +88
Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.SaveButton.SaveItem(SPContext itemContext, Boolean uploadMode, String checkInComment) +178
Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.SaveButton.SaveItem() +58
Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.SaveButton.OnBubbleEvent(Object source, EventArgs e) +249
System.Web.UI.Control.RaiseBubbleEvent(Object source, EventArgs args) +35
System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.OnCommand(CommandEventArgs e) +115
System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument) +163
System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.System.Web.UI.IPostBackEventHandler.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument) +7
System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument) +11
System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(NameValueCollection postData) +177
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +1746

Not good, huh!

Anyway, it turns out this is a fairly well known problem (even though Googling the error doesn't come up with much). Two good posts that started to lead me in the right direction are here and here. It turns out, that for me, the solution was as easy as making sure I had a mandatory or required field/column with no default value entered for the uploaded documents. The workflow would then have to wait until the user entered the requisite information and checked the document in, before firing. Problem solved.

Cheap Glasses for the Yearning Australian Masses

Me, I am determined to never need glasses, no matter how blind I become. I'm not quite sure how I am going to manage this, but I am confident that sometime soon someone smart will invent a "Driving By Braille" system for people like me.

One recent development that is chipping away at my steely resolve to remain sans spectacles is the growing availability of cheap glasses. More and more sites pop up that allow you to merely enter the details of your prescription and order a fresh yet affordable set of optics to suit your mood at crazy prices.

Actually, a friend of mine has recently started just such a optometrist bankrupting venture, called GetFramed. He is selling prescription specs to the discerning Australian clientele, starting for the frivolous sum of $30, climbing to the dizzying heights of $70 for the "flash ones". I'm not entirely sure how he is managing this (I am visualising hundreds of feverish gnomes hard at work in his shed), but hey, why look a gift horse in the mouth (unless of course, you like me are so blind you thought it was a drinking fountain).

Anyway, if you are in the market for some reasonably priced spectacles, give him a try at www.GetFramed.com.au.

BTW - Weird aside - I've noticed this post is showing up on a site called ikox dot net. Not sure whats happening there but looks like whoever is behind this site is ripping off my post. Weird.

World's Biggest House

I've noticed a few people seem to be drifting into my blog looking for information on the world's largest house. I can point you in the direction of the biggest wooden house (more of a cubby house for adults really), but sadly can't definitively tell you which house is the world's hugest! I can tell you that the largest privately owned house in the US is the Biltmore House. It was built after 1888 by the Vanderbilt family, and has a floor area of over 16,000 square meters. The estate itself covers over 8000 acres or around 32 square km.

This monstrous family mansion has 250 rooms, an indoor pool a bowling alley and 3 kitchens. If you were advertising it for sale it would be a 35 x 43, which is really weird ... 35 bedrooms but 43 bathrooms! Anyway, more information here.

It could be argued that Windsor Castle is a private establishment and if you felt that the British Royal family owning such a house does not constitute public ownership, it would probably win the title of World's largest house. Windsor Castle has a floor area of about 45,000 square meters. However, I reckon this one is cheating ...

Anyway, if you happen to know of a larger houses anywhere in the world, drop me a comment (please, no temples, government buildings or office blocks ... just private houses).

Update: It would appear that the Biltmore house will sit at the top for only a short while longer. A new Biggest house in the world is rising in, of all places, Mumbai. Details about this monsterous house here.

Reasonless Traffic Jams

I don't know about you, but the the roads seem to be me to be increasingly populated with a mix of octogenarians driving little more that battery powered wheelchairs at speeds that would have made the proprietor of Mr. Tom Chandlebutt's Steady Cart Transport Company doze off and surly faced hoods driving cars with twice as many kilowatts as they have braincells. There seems to be an attitude, at least around here, that the right hand lane is for "long term residents", rather than being the "fast lane". In fact, I'm sure some people assume that since they are turning right sometime in the next few days, they are entitled to just stick in the right lane (here in Australia we drive right hand drive cars, and so our roads are built to work opposite to those in the US and France). I have developed a desire for instant capital punishment to be meted out on those I deem to be infringing the rules of good sense, and in my less cheerful moments, feel that a line of smoking wrecks lining the road would serve to discourage those who feel the need to brake to a stop before merging onto a freeway. Not very charitable, I know, but I'm sure I'm not alone. Breath in if you've ever felt frustrated at other drivers on the roads ;)

Anyway, an article linked from Slashdot today reminded me of some cool information I found a while ago about traffic. The article described how Japanese researcher has shown how on a saturated road system, even with no traffic hazards or obstacles, jams will form and travel back through traffic like a shock wave. The Japanese experiment involved 20 or so cars, driving on a 230m circular track. Each driver was told to drive at a constant speed of 30 km per hour, yet before long, inconsistencies in their drive patterns were resulting in jams and slowdowns.

A few years back, a guy called William Beaty wrote a series of articles on traffic waves. He wasn't a traffic expert, but they are really very cool, and illustrated with animations that show the results of his experiments. Another interesting resource is this animated tool, which although a little old now, allows you to model traffic conditions and see the effect sped up.

My own thoughts on the matter are that governments need a few things done. There is no way that the world can afford to continue to widen roads to accommodate more traffic. Both economically and environmentally this is mad. Governments need a better program of driver education that trains people on how to merge effectively and at speed, change lanes safely and how to handle a traffic hazard (have you ever noticed how if there has been a traffic accident, even though the vehicles and emergency staff a now well off the road itself, all the traffic still slows almost a stop? I just don't get that ... Who wants to look at an accident ... Oh look there! Theres a victim on a stretcher. I spy with my little eye something beginning with "Ambulance"). Insurance companies could be the point of entry into re-education for existing drivers, forcing people who have made certain types of insurance claims to attend the program.

Another thing that would help would be if GPS systems were better equipped to tell me traffic conditions on my route. I don't just want to know where I am, but where all the other cars are and how fast they are traveling. That way, the load could be spread better among alternate routes. Even if government traffic authorities were to have the control to put recommended quota levels on roads in real time, so that roads with ongoing work or traffic hazards could have their quota reduced so that GPS systems recommend drivers away from that route after the quota is reached.

I reckon a light on the roof of every vehicle that indicates if they are traveling at or above speed or not would be good. Green for at or above the speed limit, orange for below. This would mean that rather than breaking when I see the car in front braking, I could see the line of amber lights ahead of me, and chill out about going any quicker. So rather than breaking suddenly and causing a shock wave of traffic, I can help lower the average speed a little rather than a lot.

Anyway, clearly I worry way too much about this and have spent way too much time thinking about this.

Airconditioning for Renters

Hello long suffering audience. I am very grateful for the continuing patronage of all three of you. As a token of my gratitude, behold! My latest post!

Pointless theatrics aside, we have just invested in a new shiny silver box thing. While the regular reader of this blog may worry that this might cause some jealousy amongst the existing silvery boxes in our house (e.g. our very zealous fridge or our toaster), it's all going to be fine ... This one will reside in a different room. This one is an air conditioner (in case you hadn't managed to deduce this from the title).

We are renting at present, and as a consequence are not in a position to make too many radical changes to the house we are in. Given we have had a couple of months here with the temperatures hovering in the high thirties, we decide we want, nay, needed some aircon. But as we have never met our landlord, we were a bit uncertain as to how he would react to us punching large holes through his walls for a split system. So we opted for a portable air conditioner.

After reading Choice magazines review, we settled on a Electrolux Portable unit with the classy moniker of EPV12CRA (how do they come up with these? ... so catchy, so fun!). All sarcasm aside, this unit looks awesome in the pictures, but is a little disappointing ensconced in my bedroom. In person, it reminds me of those individuals you meet who look amazing from a distance, but don't look so good in profile. Like all portable air conditioners, it looks a little bit over-weight, as it bulges to accommodate all those fans and coolers and pumps and so on, but somehow the pictures had led me to believe that this unit would be different, all svelte, shiny and slim. Sigh.

And like portable air conditioners, setting it up is a bit of a let down, as you arrange a large hose to vent the hot air out a window, its grey length looking more like an anaconda that has just consumed a hummer than a "decorative feature in the bedroom".

Other than that it seems to work pretty well. It has 5 modes - cool, dehumidify, fan, vent and a turbo mode that just cranks the whole thing up as fast and cold as it can go. It has an internal reservoir to hold the condensation that builds up in all refrigerative aircon units, and while you can run a hose from the unit to a handy receptical (another classy touch ... a hose running into a bucket) or out the window, it run for about 12 hours before needing to be emptied. All the controls are on the remote, so don't lose it, but the controls a relative intuitive and obvious. It also has a thing called a Plasmacluster Ion generator. When this on, a very blue square is illuminated on the front panel, and other than, it smells a little different but seems to run the same.

It ships with a window sash kit to help you permanently install the exhaust air outlet in a window frame, a hose to drain the water, and the exhaust hose, as well as a couple of rolls of insulating foam for use around the window sash. The window sash kit also has a aperture for the condensation hose.

One thing that did surprise me is that warranty seems to indicate that it is covered for 5 years. Don't quote me on this, as mileage may differ, but the generic appliance warranty we got with the air conditioner stated that air conditioners are covered for 5 years.

Cutting to the chase here, this unit does the job of cooling a room, but if you are paying extra because it looks shiny and silver and slim, don't bother. Its a bit on the over weight side, looks bad in profile and has a pet anaconda.

Chilling Stuff

We bought a new fridge recently. New us, not new as in just laid. All the same, the wonder of Ebay allowed us purchase a second hand Fisher & Paykel E440T 447 litres Iridium Stainless Steel fridge, to give it the full name on it's pedigree papers. So far I'm quite impressed with it. The thing is, this fridge gives me the impression that it takes the task of keeping my food coolish very seriously.

For example, I had a chilly bin/esky full of food from the freezer unit in the fridge in our old place, and was about to load it into the new fridge, which had been installed and switched on only 30 minutes before. I opened the fridge door and began to place items into the fridge, and noticed a strange sound. It was a very faint cracking sound, almost as if the fridge was saying, "You know what you're doing here, buddy?! 'Cause thats permafrost melting, ya know! Think global warming and icecaps dying. So hurry up, ok!"

Well, I disregarded the warning and kept loading at a leisurely pace. After about a minute the fridge began beeping, as if to say, "I'm beginning to lose my cool here, mate. Close the freezer door and no one gets hurt!"

Finally, after about 2 minutes of me loading, all the lights in the fridge went out and the beeping became continuous, as the fridge attempted to convey a final warning that if I didn't close that flipping door this instant, there would be hell to pay, or at least uncool food.

I finished and closed the door, and was immediately greeted with the sound of a small but very intense turbine winding up to high speed, doubtless blasting the interior of the freezer with freshly ground snowmen and essense of polar bear. The noise seemed to convey a message, saying "Great, now I'm going to have to work overtime. I mean, this is what you've pushed me to, buddy. Listen to me work. It's not like I've got nothing else to be doing here, ya hear. Loser!"

I like that in a fridge. Most of the time it just sits there placidly, looking all silver and calm. But get it narked and it really lets you know that keeping this food cold is a sacred mission, so just get out the way. If you've got any other questions about this fridge, let me know.

Red Light District

Given I have neglected this blog for some months now, I thought you might need something a little more than the normal mundane title to shake you from your torpitude. Hence the somewhat misleading title. Monster and I happened to be in Singapore recently, and after a bit of research decided to stay in the a hotel named "The Scarlet Hotel". It's one of several new boutique hotels in Singapore and was, apart from our taxi drivers having some difficulty finding it, pretty good.

The Scarlet is in fact a converted row of shops that slope gently down a little crescent near the Big Red Pagoda in the Chinese Quarter. The internal walls between the old stores have been knocked out, and hotel rooms installed, creating a rather unusual hotel in which the corridors follow the slightly sloping, slightly curved path of the street outside. Each room is decorated with real attention to detail, the styling being at once evocative of a French palace mixed with modern touches. Its a little hard to describe, but picture brocades and velvets mixed with dark wood and sharp lines. Very cool.

One thing that really impressed me was the room service. We arrived in the early morning, about 3ish, after spending 7 hours on a Tiger flight (not at all fun ... more on this on a later date, but unless you are blessed with very short legs, and I do mean legs no longer than about 6 inches, or have recently escaped from several years incarceration in a mid sized esky, avoid Tiger like you would any other dangerous animal) and ordered some tea from the in-room menu. I was informed over the phone that the bar was closed and they wouldn't be able to mix me a drink. 3 minutes later the concierge called to say they had found someone who knew how to mix drinks and was it OK if they still sent it. Within 15 minutes we were tucking into a rather nice meal, grateful to have escaped bits of card mascarading as food on the air flight. Any hotel that can rustle up a decent meal at that time gets kudos.

On our first time there we were upgraded from their Deluxe room to an Executive room. Very nice. However, they neglected to tell us this, so on our return trip when we got the room we had booked, a Deluxe room, we were a little confused. The Executive rooms are large and, well, roomy. They are very stylish and ornate. The Deluxe rooms are much smaller and simpler in style. However, they are still pretty comfortable.

One final comment. The staff didn't seem ultra keen to help us haul our luggage down to our room ... so if you do ever decide to stay here (and we would recommend it), make a point of telling the staff you want a porter to take your luggage up ... They might not think of it otherwise.

Now for something a bit more high brow

Too much rank silliness, really. Coffee, safaris and the weather. Nope, today we are posting something a lot more intellectually stimulating. Allow me to recommend to your perusal and careful attention a fascinating article entitled “Why does Fiat Money seemingly work?”. Even if you passionately disagree with the rest of this article, it’s a interesting read.

Now some of you will be wondering what fiat money is. I can see you all now, squinting, head cocked, thinking extra hard, with a little thought bubble above your heads enclosing a picture of a $5 note with 4 wheels and a Fiat badge in the place of queen’s head. Nope. Fiat money or currency, is money which derives its value from the fiat or command of a government or other authority. The dollar bill is a great example of fiat money. As a piece of paper or plastic, pretty much worthless. But valuable because the government says it is.

The article recommended discusses both the origin of the fiat currency, its history, and most significantly, its fragility. In the view of the author it must eventually fail. Here are a few tantalising quotes to whet your whistle (or spike your spyglass if that’s more your thing).

“Since the central bank’s balance sheet is largely composed of government debt, it has an incentive to manage the public’s ‘inflation expectations’ and inflate the currency as inconspicuously as possible.”

“…free market tends to consistently lower the prices of goods and services over time. That is the logical result of increasing productivity. This is why the widely accepted tenet that we "need some inflation of the money supply to enable the economy to grow" is a complete lie.”

“In a nation of debtors, inflation is the politically most palatable form of monetary policy – after all, everybody is focused on the short term (politicians and bureaucrats on their terms of office, consumers on their debt and their desire to buy more things they don’t need with money they don’t have, and so forth). No one considers for a moment, that in the long run, this policy means ruin. Over time, the middle and lower classes will see their real incomes and living standards shrink ever more, while the true beneficiaries of inflation – those who get first dibs on every dollop of newly created fiat money – amass more and more of the wealth that is stolen from its producers by inflation.”

Have a read.

Now for the digression. For those of you who are not Christadelphians, this could be a little much. If so, leave me a comment, and I will either explain further or not. Anyways … I’ve always wondered about fiat money. The Lord, in the Olivet Prophecy, told us that the believers would be eating and drinking, buy and selling, oblivious till the very day they were taken away to the judgment seat of Christ. This language has, to me, always implied a time of incredible economic prosperity. Why would the believers be unconscious of the nearness of Christ’s return if the times were bad. Rather, in bad times, the faithful are watching and aware of the need for and the real nearness of Christ. It’s in good times that we forget.

Coupled with my view that Christ would return in prosperous economic times, I feel that the removal of the believers will be marked by the beginning of some very bad times for the world at large … a time of trouble such as never was will dawn. I think that this time arrives when for some reason, and I have no idea about the actual mechanics of this, the world realises that dollars (fiat money) are really worthless. Such a realisation, experienced simultaneously globally, could easily destroy the worlds economy in a matter of days. And the article above shows how this could happen. As the author states

“Government mandated fiat currency simply does not work in the long run. We have empirical evidence galore – every fiat currency in history has failed, except the present one, which has not failed yet.”

When then? Soon.

All Quiet on the Wild Weather Front?

Not! I haven’t posted on this subject for some time, mostly because with the sudden hype storm around global weather patterns triggered by “An Inconvenient Truth”, it seemed a bit a bit of a moot point. Which brings me to another subject. What is a "moot"? I’ve always suspected it was a small but vicious type of canary, typically distinguished by its sepulchral colored plumage. Anyway (awkward pause), this weather we have been having. It continues to be unusual. I’ve be chronicling the strangeness of the weather for some time now (Sept 05, Aug 05, Oct 05, Mar 06, June 06 and, just to be confusing, Jun 06). Here are a few more to add the collection … More records falling.

• Flooding kills 3 in the UK – described as “unprecedented rainfall”
• Indian monsoon leaves over 100 dead
• Storms in Newcastle break 30 year records while break once in a 100 year drought
• Storms in Victoria “worst in 17” years
• Hottest June in history in Greece, hottest Tuesday in 90 years in Bucharest

OK, that’s enough for the time being. Surfice it to say that the weather is crazy … still.

Safari still all up the "WebURLProtectionSpaceProxyHTTP"

Apple have whipped up a new version of their Safari for Windows browser. This one supposedly resolves a bunch of security issues identified in the first beta release. However, it still doesn't resolve the issues that I am experiencing ... As mentioned in my previous post, the first release Safari asked for authentication to log into the WebURLProtectionSpaceProxyHTTP proxy for any page I go to. And then when I put something in it crashed in a rather ungraceful way.

Well, I've downloaded the new release, version 3.522.12.2, and given it another try ... and magically, with the smoothness and slick presentation I am coming to expect from all Apple software, it crashes again, giving me the following descriptive and helpful error messages (see image right).

To be fair, I notice that the Apple site does say that support for NTLM proxies is still coming.
All the same, for a company that prides itself on the slickness and the ease of use of it's products this is not impressive. And yes, I know this is in beta ... but depending on IE for proxy information when IE is the product you're product is trying to supplant is hardly a winning move. So far, F+. Must try harder.

Safari seems a little lost

OK, I'll be the first to admit that I'm a bit of a closet Apple fanboy. And so the first thing I did this morning on discovering that Apple had released a beta of Safari for Windows, was download and install it. On opening the app, I got the following screen.

Not the most encouraging of starts, but hey, I'm an optimist, so on we forge.

I did a search on the goog for "WebURLProtectionSpaceProxyHTTP" to find out what sort of a proxy server it was. Nothing comes up. Wow! The Interweb doesn't know about something!

So then, I put in a dummy username and password (yes, I know this probably is something to do with my local proxy, but given Safari wants to send my password in the clear, I want to know what's going on before I click "pwn me"). And here is what I get ...

A bit sad really. Sure, this is a beta. But beta is still the last software phase before a roll out ... The last gasp chance to catch any problems. I can't even get to a web page, let alone browse. One would have thought Apple would have handled the basics, like proxies and passwords. Anyway, let me know what you think and if you have a better experience, great, I'm jealous, now go away.

Other notes: See also this blog from Errata Security, this from Aviv Raff, problems also Slashdotted.

Update: gothick, a poster below, suggested that this might be something to do with an NTLM proxy. If anyone gets any closer to the truth with this, feel free to drop me a comment here. Another thing I've since noted is that when I checked the IP provided, I couldn't get it to didn't resolve.

Update 2: Sufferers ... you are not alone. Snowy_River writes of the same problem on MacRumours. Check out the comments below as well. Anonymous comments that changing the proxy settings in IE affects Safari on restart ... which if true has to be the weirdest coding decision ever ... Apple depending on Microsoft for it's security (proxy) info!

What sort of Coffee

I'm embarrassed to report that if I were a coffee, I would be an Irish Coffee! Whatever one of those is ... It must be true because I read it on the internet. Doubtless it's based on loads of research, and is the product of a number of large and weighty documents, presented by people in white lab coats with glasses and wise looks on their faces, peer reviewed by experts in the field and blessed by Tibetan monks. Anyway, for what it's worth, here is the formal analysis of my personality ... as a coffee.

Strange note : According to this, I'm not really addicted to coffee.

You Are an Irish Coffee

At your best, you are: wild, spontaneous, and outgoing At your worst, you are: too extreme and reckless You drink coffee when: you want to keep drinking booze Your caffeine addiction level: low

Anyway, you can check it out for yourself here (although given it's assessment of me, I wouldn't place any more trust in this than I would the store assistant's assurances that, "No, it really suits you") . If this isn't your cup of tea, have a look at my last coffee related post.

I've Been Everywhere, Man

Every time I look at my passport I get this kind of warm glow. I open it up and finger the pages, feeling pleased at the number of stamps and number countries represented inside. Anyway, I was browsing the interweb the other day and came across a tool for mapping where one has been. So I did. And now I feel defeated. So many countries, so little money.

Anyway, you can create your own here. Have go, and I hope your map looks even more miserable than my own ;)

PS Drop me a comment, and let me know the coolest place you have ever been. If I get enough comments, I will post a list of them.

Traveled the WorldHoneymoon on Koh SamuiChristadelphian Travel

Making Perfect Milk with Miss Silvia

Actually, the perfect bit was just a hook. I'm not at all confident that I am yet making perfect milk with my Rancilio Silvia, but I thought that I would write down some of the things I'm doing in my pursuit of a better cup of coffee. This article is probably of little interest to those who don't like coffee, so I won't feel offended if you push off at this point ... honest.

1. The first thing I am doing is trying to give myself a little more steaming time to get the milk right. I keep my milk chilled and the milk jug in the freezer. I reckon this gives me a few extra seconds to get the milk right before it's "cooked".
2. Next, I am making sure that the steam is dry before starting steaming. At some point after flicking the steam switch on and before the heating light has gone off, I am turning the steam handle and letting it run into a spare jug or cup. I do this till the steam runs dry.
3. Once the steam light is off, I am pouring my milk into the jug I have just removed from the freezer and beginning steaming. To start with I steam to get as much volume as possible while not letting the bubbles get too big. I'm aiming to have the steam wand just below the surface so it makes a sort of slurping noise, while having the steam wand at the lower left corner of the jug so that the milk swirls round the jug in a fast whirlpool. If the bubbles start appearing to large, I lower the steam wand a little.
4. While doing this I keep my hand under the left hand under the jug to measure the heat. Once it's too hot to touch I assume the milk will be at perfect temperature with another few seconds steaming.
5. I am aiming (for a latte anyway) to get milk where the volume has almost doubled, but I can see no visible bubbles. The surface of the milk should have a velvety sheen. If I get these two factors, plus the milk isn't too hot, I figure I have done a good job.

Thats how I do it anyway. Let me know if you have any tips for me, or you do it differently.

Coffee with Miss SilviaCoffee Silvia RancilioCoffee Milk

A Real Coffee Hit

Sure, coffee is a drug. Mostly safe, but a drug all the same. Mind altering, delivering positive feelings like "mmmm, nice coffee" and "ohhhh, I feel awake now" and so on. But given its street price is somewhere around $3 a hit, and its not just sold by heavily tatoo-ed men at night clubs and and rarely sold by seeding looking individuals in parked Monaros (a type of iconic/infamous Australian car for those of you out of town), I've not felt too guilty in obtaining and taking this particular drug. Granted, thats not much of a rationalisation, but its still only $3 a cup. Well, no longer. Check this one out! $50 bucks a cup. If I get hooked on that stuff, I could just find myself nipping over your back fence with your DVD player and CD collection. Dave Barry has something to say about this in an article delicately entitled, "Java weasel makes fine poopacino". Read and enjoy friends.

Expensive CoffeeExpensive CoffeeChristadelphian Online

World's Biggest Cubby House

I've often felt it would be nice to have a little log cabin somewhere, a place to get away from it all. I guess in a way, there is a touch of nostalgia in the idea of the log cabin, looking back to those fantastic autumn days building a cubby house or a tree hut. However, this gentleman has taken it to an ridiculous (and totally awesome) extreme, as reported in the Daily Telegraph! Rather than bearing any resemblance to a tree house or cubby, this more closely resembles Sarumon's Tower in Mordor, picked out in timber. Awesome. Actually, the other thing this reminds me off is the Bell Tower in Perth ... or as I like to call it, the Hell Tower. Putting WA on the map (for amazingly sinister architecture).

Footnote: No picture for the cubby as I am confident that the picture out on the web is owned by the Telegraph. Let me know if you find a good picture of this so I can post one.

Also, if you got here looking for the world's largest house, follow the link.

Wood CabinWood CabinChristadelphian Online

The Bible on a Budget

As many of you will be aware, E-Sword is a fabulous tool for Bible Study, and is made even more fabulous by its free-ness. The free modules available with E-Sword are what puts it in a league of its own, many of these being costlessly available on the E-Sword site itself. However, for those of you looking for a little more, I thought I would give you the list of a few of the additional modules that I have found on my travels - the ones that I really like.

• TDNT - For those of you with no memory for acronyms, this is the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. It's an abbreviated version, sadly, but a good start all the same.
  
• TWOT - Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament - This is the gold standard dictionary for Old Testament words. It's keyed to Brown Driver Briggs, so you will need that first. For this one, you will need to sign up for an account at DNSPAD.com and then, once logged in navigate to the Downloads section and from thence down to E-Sword Dictionaries. Get this one!
  
• Strongs with Tenses - Again, this one is to be found on DNSPAD.com. Navigate as for TWOT.
• Amplified Bible - A free version. The one on E-Sword is not free.
• Rotherham's Emphasized Bible - For those of you who want a version you can really get your teeth into.

OK, that's 5 I like for starters. If you've found some others that you really like and they are not on the E-Sword site, drop me a line and I will add them to this post (eventually ;). Actually, I won't be surprised if nobody reads this post.

Christadelphian E-Sword ModulesChristadelphian E-SwordChristadelphian Online

Diving into the Blue

I think I mentioned that while on our honeymoon, we went diving. In fact, we learnt to dive and got our divers licenses (there's a joke lurking somewhere in this but I will refrain). We did our divers course in 3 days with 1 day spent in the swimming pool of a local resort (there were some very surprised swimmers as we popped up from the deep), and 2 days of boat dives. Actually the pool wasn't very deep. Less than 6 foot at the deepest point. This made the whole diving thing a little tricky, as every time we plunged into the not so murky chlorinated depths we hit the bottom.

Our 2nd and 3rd days were fantastic. Exhausting but fantastic. We had an early start, catching a big catamaran to Koh Tao, a smaller island ideal for diving. The boat trip took about 1.5 hours each way and this provided time for us to review the theory that we had had to study the previous evening. On the final day, on the return trip we did the theory test for our Padi Open Water Diver tickets, which was an excellent use of time. The only tricky thing about doing it on a catamaran was that that particular trip was quite rough. Consequently, Mr Heroic (me) got sea sick. It's a touch distracting needing to race outside for fresh air every few minutes while trying to take an academic exam. Still, the Madeline Barnes, our instructor was brilliant and we can highly recommend the company that ran our dive course, Searobin. The course was very time efficient, and we felt like we had the complete, undivided and supportive attention of our instructor.

Diving off Koh Tao was great. Our first dive was just off the island. When we arrived at the island, we boarded our dive boat and were dropped near the beach. We did the dive and finished on the edge of the beach and walked up the sand to the island restaurant for lunch.

Our second dive was in much deeper water and was a lot more fun. The dive boat was shared with a Japanese company, and for some reason they had preferential treatment, making the decision as to where would dive. This wasn't too much of a problem though, as they were keen to dive at cool places.

On the second day of boat dives, we again did the first dive in shallowish water (less than 10m) due to having to finish a lot of the practical material for our PADI tickets.The second dive was to have been off Sail Rock but sadly, the boat broke down before it picked us up after lunch. We could see it just 15 metres away over the water from the jetty, but no boat, no dive. Eventually it arrived, wheezing and literally fountaining oil from a hole in the engine. One of the boat staff sat in the engine bay and poured more oil in the top while the other drove us just a little way from the jetty for our final dive.

Overall, we had a fantastic experience and loved every minute of it. Well, apart from trying to find masks that worked for us. Neither of us could find a mask that fitted perfectly, so we spent some of our time each dive clearing them. All the same, to see another world like that and to realise afresh the brilliance, versatility and sheer creative genius of the our God was a great experience. Can't wait till we can dive without all the Scuba Gear.

Arielle Jolly Koh Samui Honeymoon is my babe!Christadelphian Honeymoon Jolly'sPADI Open Water Samui

White Noise

OK, so when I left you in the lurch with this long winded and needlessly wordy story, we were in Vietnam, enjoying the amazing scenery of Halong Bay ... Actually, here is a photo that I took while on Halong Bay, from the deck of our Junk, the inaccurately named Jewel of the Bay.

After enjoying the bay, we returned to harbour and then were driven back to Hanoi. We spent a day shopping in Hanoi (actually looking for shops would be a more accurate description. Hanoi, being a Communist city in a Communist state, hides its shops, disguising them from the enemy eg me) and then back on the plane to Bangkok (just for a change). From Bangkok we switched planes and flew through the night down to Melbourne.

Of course this all sounds straight forward but glosses over the 2 uncomfortable hours spent on a park bench on a crowded Vietnamese harbourside, waiting for a bus to show up in the sweltering midday sun, an altercation with a would be extortionist bike taxi driver and the frantic race through the airport to catch the plane in Bangkok due to delays exiting the plane from Vietnam. Still, all good to have a laugh about later. Or not.

Now, about this stage you are either saying "I am sick of this honeymoon, and it's old news anyway" or "Why call this post 'White Noise'?" To the former I say, "May your olives drop off" (an ancient Hebrew curse that is all bark and no bite to those of us without olive trees) and to the later, "I'm glad you asked."

Once in Melbourne, we got through customs, exited the airport, picked up a car (managed to scam a racier vehicle than we payed for ... Yep a pumping 4 cylinder internal combustion engine rather than a 3 cylinder goat powered go cart I had payed for), did some shopping, dropped through a friends house to pick up a snow board and then off to Bright. For we are snowbound, hence the title. OK, I admit it. I'm tired and can't think of anything better to name this post. Go away.

By the time we arrived in Bright, I had been awake for something like 30+ hours (all day in Hanoi, all night on the plane, all the next day and then driving till about 12pm to get to Bright). At Bright, the directions I had been given to our chalet suddenly stopped making sense and we drove in circles, bewildered and dazed like a bird whose lost and is driving his car in circles, until I was pulled over by the Highway Patrol. The officer was probably fairly surprised to have someone so abjectly happy to be pulled over at 1am ... Luckily he knew our way, and soon after, so did we.

So we stopped for one night in the Buckland Valley just outside Bright in this little chalet. Its one of 4 obsessively German, beautifully appointed chalets. Modern minimalist interiors, fantastic views and great design. Nice for couples, not so good for families - ours, at least, had only one bedroom and one bed.

Next morning, after a bit of a recovery sleep in, we rose and headed in to town, picked up some snow gear (I bought my beautiful wife a snow jacket) and then headed for the hills.

The ski season at Mount Hotham this year was disappointing, but we still had a great time. My wife had never been snowboarding before, so it was all new to her. I found it a little more difficult as all the runs that I wanted to do were closed due to poor cover. Still, we had a great time.

To keep the consistency of this chronicle of ours, I include a shot of the place we stayed at while at Mount Hotham, the brand new Chalet Hotham. More precisely, a shot out the window towards the ski run. For those of you famailiar with Hotham, the Summit run in on the left there, Heavenly Valley on the right and just below our field of view (somewhere nestled amongst the cushions, is the Basin Run.

Commanding fantastic views out over the Mount Hotham and being situated literally, a slip, a swift slide, and solid thump at the end from the start of several good runs at Mount Hotham, this place couldn't be situated better.

Anyway, we spent 5 days, up the mountain, loving every minute of it. Well, apart for the acute pain brought on by a hard days snowboarding ;)

Well, gotta go. Said enough for tonight. Loads of love to everyone. Or not.

Arielle Jolly Halong Bay Honeymoon is my babe!Christadelphian Honeymoon Jolly's