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Musings while travelling
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Tue, 04 Mar 2008
Passing through
I’m in London for a few days; I have a few meetings set up for while I’m here, but we’re always on the lookout for people with new and interesting problems. If anyone reading this is battling to get their IT operations into shape, or perhaps has a major enterprise system critical to their business that is not living up to expectations, then by all means get in touch. We also have long experience with clients who run large Java systems on Linux, and problem solving in those environments continues to be the focus of much of our work.
If you’re facing issues in any of these areas and need to do something about them, I’d be more than pleased to meet with you while I’m here. You can leave a message for me on 0207 101 9201 or call my mobile +61 4 1079 6725; my email address is andrew@operationaldynamics.com.
Given the Java on Linux preoccupation, it’s no surprise that a few years ago I became the maintainer Java bindings for the GNOME Desktop (a project which allows people to use GTK and the other GNOME libraries from to create powerful Linux applications while leveraging their existing expertise with Java). That’s the reason I’m on the road this particular trip; the GNOME Foundation has organized a GTK hackfest in Berlin next week and I was kindly invited.
I’ll be in Toronto the week after, so again, if someone would like to meet, please don’t hesitate to call; 647 477 5603.
Actually, this whole blog post is a bit of a misnomer. It doesn’t matter where you are located, nor where I or any of my staff happen to be any given week. If you have systems that are critical to your business, need to prevent crisis from occurring, trying to manage change better, or looking to review your architecture so you can optimize your use of technology and ensure scalability, then don’t hesitate to contact us, anytime.
AfC
--Andrew Frederick Cowie Managing Director | |||
 | |||
| Sydney | New York | Toronto | London |
| +61 2 9977 6866 | +1 646 472 5054 | +1 647 477 5603 | +44 207 101 9201 |
Fri, 11 Jan 2008
Don’t feed the locals
Spend a few weeks hiking in Tasmania over New Year’s…
Hazzard beach, looking south to Mt Freycinet and Mt Graham in Freycinet National Park, Tasmania, Australia.
No water here, or (anywhere else in the park for that matter). It’s only 600m up, but it’s a fairly steep climb. Lucky to have had gorgeous weather, but whoa was it hot. Packed in 10L of water. Heavy. Still ran low; should have brought even more. I used to think those pocket desalinaters were gimmicks, but I’m having second thoughts now.
The view east from Mt Graham, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania, Australia.
I like cooking pancakes when I’m trekking and make sure to bring maple syrup along, of course. Apparently, the wallabies at Wineglass Bay also like pancakes. The pot lid kept this one out of the batter, but didn’t prevent it from feeling free to lick the spoon.
Breakfast at Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park, Tasmania, Australia. Photo by Katrina Ross
There are some astoundingly beautiful National Parks in Tasmania, although you have to drive for ever to get to any of them — forget about public transit; you’re renting a car so you can park it for a week when you get there. Great.
Worth it for the views, though. You get to missing mountains, sometimes.
Looking southwest from Mt Rufus in Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania, Australia.
You can also forget about seeing any old growth forest; while the National Parks in the state cover an impressive amount of ground, the formation of these reserves appears to have come long after the bulk of the big timber was removed, and logging continues to happen in protected areas. From high up on the mountains you can plainly see the clear-cut areas, which is a shame, because properly managed forests can be a renewable resource. The trouble, however, it takes on the order of 70 years before a plot is ready for harvesting. Most people aren’t really that patient, and clear cutting is often “easier”.
What really gets me, though are the “state forests” which are marked as “multi-use”. Funny how there aren’t many trees left. Same thing happens all over - Canada’s “National Parks” are “multi-use”; take a drive through the Rockies from Calgary to Vancouver and you’ll keep coming to National Parks that are “temporarily closed for logging, no camping” and clear-cut. Then there is the activity of the American federal “Forestry Service” (which is in the business of building roads so that it easier for logging companies to mow down said forests). Australia, it seems, is no different.
And this from a guy who is otherwise pro-logging. Lumber is an essential construction material, and paper will remain the essence of recording and disseminating information for a long time to come. An immense number of jobs come from their production. But if we want to have those jobs in the future, and if we want the forests to continue to be viable and not have all the soil wash away in the next hurricane, the forest industry must be incented to contribute to the sustainment of the land. It’s pretty simple: no soil, no new growth of any kind, period. The only thing I can think of is something like a reverse carbon tax: for every large tree of a certain diameter, etc they can prove they didn’t cut down, they’d get a tax credit. Somehow, though, I’m guessing that all that would result in is plenty more bureaucracy but not a whole lot more in the way of sensible land management.
Anyway, I digress. The things you think about when you’re walking.
Approaching Russell Falls in Mt Field National Park, Tasmania, Australia.
Beautiful.
AfC
Fri, 19 Oct 2007
And then it changed.
It was hot here the other day. And then it wasn’t.
At three in the afternoon on what was otherwise a lovely day in Sydney, it went from 34°C to 17°C in less than half an hour. Yikes.
Most places I’ve lived, this is a front coming through. But here, in the weather forecasts, they say “and then a change expected”. Change. Uh huh.
I suspect this is the result of Sydney being close to the south latitude region where the equatorial low pressure areas mix with the sub-tropical high pressure ones. Depending on which way the winds are slopping around, we’re either in a nice toasty warm tropical air mass or some nasty mess blowing in from the southern Indian Ocean. Same thing happens in Canada, only there it’s the marked difference between the temperate air masses and the arctic polar one.
AfC
Wed, 08 Aug 2007
Dead give away
Wayne Piekarski writes:
Guess what? I made the move over to America!
It’s rather notorious out in the rest of the world that New Zealanders get very upset when they get mistaken for Australians, and likewise Canadians go ballistic if they get asked “where in the States are you from?”
Having been abroad and an expatriate for almost a decade, I’ve realized that there are some clues that you might not have noticed:
A Canadian would never call it “America” — the country south of the border is “the States” or “the US”. After all, America is not one but two continents and at best describes the spherical lune between roughly 40° West and 150° West. Canadians in particular are big on the fact they live in “North America”. Dead give away if anyone says that. Surprisingly, though, referring to the citizens of that conglomerate below the 49th parallel as the “Americans” is fairly common. Go figure.
So Wayne is clearly not a Canadian. Might be a Kiwi, though. Never can tell :)
AfC
Yes I had to look “spherical lune” up; thanks to arc, pachi, iain, Amaranth and doctau for helping me find it, and for the fascinating subsequent discussion about Terry’s Chocolate Oranges
Fri, 13 Jul 2007
Long flight, long airport
For some ungodly reason it was hard to find flights this week, so I travelled on Thai Airways a few days ago. They’re Star Alliance (good), but their in-flight amenities leave something to be desired (bad). I mean, they’re nice and all, but they have no personal video systems individual to each seat, and that makes them barbaric next to Singapore Airlines; giving the ladies an orchid just before landing as a present doesn’t really make up for it.
Worse there was no in-seat AC power, so after my laptop ran dry I had little to do and only a stupid movie to observe off in the distance; by some cruel twist of fate I had neglected to bring a novel with me and so was reduced to reading the duty-free catalogue for entertainment. Torture.
Bangkok’s new airport
Into Bangkok. My first time in their new airport. It is huge. Naively I thought that leaving the lounge 35 minutes before my connecting flight would be overkill. Instead, yikes! I conservatively estimate that I walked at least 1.5 kilometers from the lounge (somewhere on G where I arrived) to where my gate was (at the very tip of C). And I was not dawdling! Brutal. Only way I made it on time was because it was 01:00 and there were was no lineup at the checkpoint.
It’s unreal how big the place is. Searching around a bit came up with this photo dating from when it was being constructed:
Seeing the internal structure and the distance it encompasses is really something. So be warned! On the other hand, the entire D stretch is one monster duty free mall. Probably some good shopping to be had if you had a day or so between flights.
AfC
Tue, 10 Jul 2007
So much rain it’s almost British
Australia in general and Sydney in particular have been in the grips of a long term “drought”. One way this is measured here on the coast is by considering the water levels available in the dams that provide Sydney’s water supply. When I first became conscious that water levels were a concern the percentage capacity available was in the mid 40s; this past Christmas it was down as low as 33%.
While this still represents 4-5 odd years of drinking water, it nevertheless is the kind of long term trend that is pretty worrying for urban planners, leading to talk of desalinization plants and immediate opposition owing to the energy cost of such efforts. (Strangely, forcing the local utilities to reduce the massive leakage from their pipes never seems to come up in public debates)
This year has been a bit different, though. To the great chagrin of those doing agriculture inland (whose farms, somewhat unfortunately, are in the middle of large deserts and really are devastated by the continuing drought), it has been bloody pouring here on the coast. While I understand the federal political necessity to keep saying “we’re in a drought”, it raises a certain amount of cogitative dissonance every time one looks out the widow. Our summer this year was terrible, supposedly due to a) el nino [you can blame el nino for anything — it’s great! who can prove you wrong?] which caused to b) it raining almost every day since December.
This has, however, finally been good for the dams. Water levels went from 33% to 38%, and people were pretty excited.
And then June happened
I was out of Australia for much of June. Thank God: in just one month look at what happened to the dam levels:
Now that’s net inflow!
Put in perspective, over the last 5 years the plot looks like this:
This information from the amusingly named iliveinsydney.com website, a source of not just great information about what goes on with Sydney’s water supply, but practical advice about rainwater tanks and irrigation that anyone with gardens, lawns, or urban forests in their care would be interested in.
AfC
Wed, 06 Jun 2007
Traffic Jam
Trying to get to the office this morning, Katrina wrote from the ferry:
Traffic Jam in the harbour — three whales are blocking the way.
Living in Sydney is fun.
AfC
Thu, 25 Jan 2007
A Japanese pub in Hong Kong
I was introduced to a really wonderful Japanese restaurant in Hong Kong last week. The service is cheerful, the restaurant clean, and the cuisine has considerable breadth in its selection. They had a number of unique house specialities and took great pride in their offerings.
(“Unique” and “house speciality” regrettably don’t go together that often — in North America “house speciality” usually means “we changed the oil in the deep fryer this week, so we’re going to charge more”)
We had a group of 25 or so, and unlike the typical “stuck in some claustrophobic back room that has nothing to do with the place”, the proprietor was there at the door to greet us with a friendly “sit wherever you like” at any of the tables tucked away along the side of the restaurant. We had a cozy, warm, and delightful dinner. And sake. Lots and lots of sake.
Highly recommended.
Not far from Causeway Bay MTR station. Their website is in both English and Japanese and has a map.
AfC
Sat, 11 Mar 2006
Manly Birds
Katrina and I went snorkeling this afternoon down at the end of the street. As we were swimming over some shallow rocks we spotted a cormorant-like bird (black body, white features on its long narrow head, yellow beak, and what seemed like webbed feet) underwater nuzzling its way through the weeds feeding. It would pop up to the surface, take a quick breath, look around a moment, then dive down again. The lighting was amazing, streaming through the plants as the waves washed past them and the bird was only two or three meters away. I wish I’d had a submersible camera. Not every day you meet a bird underwater.
Then as we were walking home we saw a Ferry Penguin darting around the swimming area in front of Manly Surf Life Saving Club. It was obviously having a good time feeding, but as it came towards shore it suddenly zipped up under a wave and then surfed the wave in. It’s not like I’m an expert on penguins or anything, but wow. Everyone all around stopped and watched this penguin darting in and out around the rocks, buzzing the dudes on surfboards, and then catching a wave in towards the beach again. At that point I wished I’d had any camera with me.
Gotta love living at the beach.
AfC
Sun, 01 Jan 2006
Happy New Year, apparently
14:00 local time in Sydney, 1 January 2006:
Adrian Cronauer: It’s time for the weather report, and we’re going out live to the field:
Roosevelt E. Roosevelt: It’s hot. Which is fine if you’re with a lady, but it’s no good if you’re in the jungle!
Adrian Cronauer: Well can you tell me what it’s like?
Roosevelt E. Roosevelt: Fool, were you born on the sun? It’s hot. Damn hot. So hot I could cook things in my shorts… I saw this little man, dressed in orange robes, burst into flames.
— Robin Williams, “Good Morning Vietnam”
AfC
Wed, 02 Nov 2005
Diwali, the festival of noise
I’m in India for a few days. As you may be aware, it’s Diwali this week, which is supposed to be the festival of light. It’s been wonderful driving around at night seeing all the buildings lit up with lights.
However, for the last day and a half, I’ve been surprised at all the bang noises I’ve been hearing. At first I thought it was cars backfiring, but then my host mentioned that it was firecrackers.
Huh? These aren’t little snap snap snap noises. These are loud concussive thud noises. For most of the day, it sounded like someone was throwing a grenade every 40-50 seconds. That got annoying. Now that it’s evening, it sounds like gunfire mixed in with the grenades, artillery, and explosions. Been there done that. If I didn’t know better, I would have said I was in a war zone. Bloody hell.
What was wrong with the nice lights?
AfC
Sun, 05 Jun 2005
Deutsche Bahn gets it right
Images on the German railways travel information site:
Options for travellers from Germany:
Options for travellers from outside Europe:
Options for travellers from elsewhere in Europe:
Nice to see them getting their priorities straight. :)
AfC
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