Science is interesting. Now the above just made my morning. Thank you YouTube.

Solaris Joy A little more solaris joy. Mainly as a note for myself here is how to setup an OpenVPN client on OpenSolaris 2008.05: Steps Add package repositories Add Blastwave and SunFreeWare IPS repositories to the Image Packaging System: -bash-2.05b# pkg set-authority -O http://pkg.sunfreeware.com:9000/ Companion -bash-2.05b# pkg set-authority -O http://blastwave.network.com:10000/ Blastwave -bash-2.05b# pkg refresh Install and setup the TUN device -bash-2.05b# pkg install IPStun -bash-2.05b# add_drv tun Install OpenVPN -bash-2.05b# pkg install IPSopenvpn … and now you’re ready to put your openvpn....

Into the Solaris So, long time no Solaris talk. I’ve not been sleeping well this last couple of weeks (ironically this seems to have a lot to do with exhausting myself during my recent trip to England), but that inevitably leads to lots of mucking around with computers in the wee hours of the morning. The need for containers So OpenSolaris 2008.05 is on my laptop right now, and it’s a bit of surprise to find it there as I am trying to hack on some code that is destined to run on Linux....

So firstly, please, please take the time to go and watch: http://www.storyofstuff.com .. some of it everyone knows, but it’s still worth understanding all of it. Once that’s given you the picture you need to get an idea of how it’s going to get fixed. Here’s a good source where you’ll learn how the little fella pictured (A tardigrade, or “little water bear”) is helping prevent killer diseases in Africa without using up the earths resources (amongst other things)....

So, this weekend we found ourselves in the Thereisen fair ground looking for a new lens (long story - we ended up buying a dining table instead of a lens, such is life!). Whilst in this area of Munich, where Oktoberfest takes place, we got to see the young and trendy types and I realised that I was not as “down” with the young people as I imagined (I mean, can you even imagine me not being cool?...

I made a guest appearance in Nic’s day-shot the other day. We were sitting having drinks on our balcony for the first time. Very nice. I was actually pulling this expression on purpose but I do look like I’ve got something way too hot in that mug :-)

Birthday It was my birthday two days ago. At this age they tend to go with less of a bang. I think this pretty much sums it up: http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive/1955 Nic’s contribution Thank quantum theory (in the absence of God) then for my wonderful girlfriend who tried to make my day more interesting from 700 miles away by setting me this little puzzle: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanzbar/sets/72157603945426840/ … and in doing that proving herself once again to be a very inventive photographer :-)

A new year So… a new year.. the 30th new year of my life. A new location A big year for me. Firstly I am now just two months away from moving to Munich with my girlfriend Nicole and I’m both terrified and excited at the same time. I’m not worried about moving to Germany - strangely I just “know” that this will be OK - I’m worried about the future....

Flickr stats Playing around on my flickr account today I found about flickr stats. Now these stats to turn out to be mostly quite lame and predictable, but the one that caught my eye was the referal sources. In amongst a large number of hits from flickr itself and the main search engines there was a surprising 48 hits direct from realadultsex.com (Hey this link is NSFW - stupid!) Bad license assumptions ....

If you follow scheme or lisp news in even a passing fashion you can’t have failed to notice the arrival of Ikarus Scheme, the nifty incremental, native scheme code compiler. It’s an lovely new version of scheme based around R6RS. That means it supports a nice clean library system (standardised!) and scripting in the manner of Perl, Python and Ruby. Though it lacks the maturity and library base you’d find in chicken or PLT, it’s still a very attractive proposition, and the quality of the product thus far, combined with the nascent community feel around it has certainly got my spider sense tingling....