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Owing to some unresolved stability problems of gif(4) tunnels in FreeBSD, I have migrated ALIX to a Voyage Linux install. Voyage is a Debian-derived distribution optimised for embedded x86 systems in read-mostly environments. The complete install and configuration took about six hours and has fully replaced FreeBSD in its DNS/DHCP/NAT/IPv6/Firewall duties.
[root@gateway ~]$ uname -a Linux gateway 2.6.26-486-voyage #1 PREEMPT Fri Oct 24 09:21:04 GMT 2008 i586 GNU/Linux
The Netgear DG834 is a series of popular ADSL modem/firewall/router combinations. Until the DG834v4 the firewall could not be disabled on these devices. The v4 update added a web interface option to disable the firewall. Spot the design flaw:
There is no way to choose an unfirewalled non-NAT configuration. This is important in my home network, which has a delegation of public IPs, because the DG834's firewall makes an assumption that the firewall and port forwarding options are one and the same. It is not possible to allow all types of traffic to a single IP - the only way to permit ICMP to pass - without all traffic being forwarded to that IP. The next hop behind the DG834 is an ALIX device providing advanced firewalling functionality, so switching off the firewall upstream is not an unsafe thing to do.
I had hoped to take advantage of the OpenWRT open firmware project, but support for models newer than the DG834v2 is in its infancy. Instead, I decided to make use of Netgear's provision of partial source code and build tools for their hardware. The simplest approach to hard disable the firewall on routed IPs to set the policy for the FORWARD chain in iptables to ACCEPT. The firewall configuration is unfortunately not part of the provided source code (Netgear are only obliged to provide source for the GPL components) but can be found inside the target/sbin/rc binary (which is hard linked to a few other places).
By modifying this policy to ACCEPT, filtering will be disabled on routed IPs. However, there isn't enough room to replace DROP with ACCEPT without moving data throughout the binary and almost certainly breaking embedded address offsets. Since the default policy is ACCEPT, and it is not modified elsewhere, it is sufficient to simply remove the policy change here. To avoid potential problems with the handling of a blank command I replicated the -P INPUT DROP rule into this place.
After rebuilding the image and flashing it to the modem I can now pass traffic successfully to the whole network. The learning process caused a couple of device brickings. On each occasion the hardware was rescued by Wilmer van der Gaast's excellent unbricking tool, which communicates with the modem's bootloader via raw Ethernet frames to upload a working flash image.
Gank Night 11.5, yesterday's edition of Scrapheap Challenge's bimonthly drunken fun, is over! Last night's theme was inappropriate ships iftted with lasers and we raked in a fair few kills before exploding in a ball of epic disco.
My video can be found here (.mkv, 165M). It was recorded with Fraps, edited with Premiere Elements and encoded with x264. Premiere Elements 4, incidentally, seems to play happily with Vista 64-bit following a severe bug in file handling some months ago. No crashes this time!
The time for seasonal network cleaning has arrived. October's projects are to introduce IPv6 into my LAN (partly to test EthTV's compatibility) and to replace its troublesome upstream modem with an open source solution.
IPv6 was a feature of my network many years ago with a tunnel from Hurricane Electric. The immaturity of the technology and high latency1 of the service led me to nuke it a few months after setting it up, but the learning process was useful. I now have a new tunnel from SixXS with excellent latency thanks to their large pool of global peers:
[root@gateway ~]# ping6 ipv6.google.com PING6(56=40+8+8 bytes) 2a01:348:6:13a::2 --> 2001:4860:0:1001::68 16 bytes from 2001:4860:0:1001::68, icmp_seq=0 hlim=58 time=42.370 ms 16 bytes from 2001:4860:0:1001::68, icmp_seq=1 hlim=58 time=41.324 ms 16 bytes from 2001:4860:0:1001::68, icmp_seq=2 hlim=58 time=41.903 ms
SixXS is an interesting service to experience. Tunnel requests, subnet allocations, PTR delegations, etc. are approved by the company's staff if you can provide sufficient justification. Trust is built up over time through a monetary system that can be used to "purchase" additional services. Simply keeping your tunnel endpoint pingable is enough to earn these services over time, albeit at a slower rate than interacting directly with the project.
I now have a static tunnel configured on my ALIX utility box:
gif0: flags=8051 metric 0 mtu 1280 tunnel inet 82.70.152.20 --> 77.75.104.126 inet6 2a01:348:6:13a::2 --> 2a01:348:6:13a::1 prefixlen 128
Getting PF to play nicely took a little head scratching. ICMPv6 must be allowed for SixXS to monitor my endpoint. I found this was sufficient (in addition to default block rules on all interfaces and protocols):
pass in quick on vr1 inet proto ipv6 from 77.75.104.126 to 82.70.152.20 keep state pass in quick on gif0 inet6 proto ipv6-icmp from any to 2a01:348:6:13a::2 keep state
Configuring the LAN on a unique local subnet (pending enough trust with SixXS to obtain a globally routable prefix) highlighted the weaknesses in Ubuntu's GUI network configuration support. Bypassing NetworkManager for the wired connection to introduce a static IPv6 assignment did work. Interestingly, DHCPv6 is practically unsupported and one is instead meant to rely on stateless address autoconfiguration, a feature made possible by the N:1 mapping of MAC addresses to the host identifier of an IPv6 subnet. I haven't figured out how this variable mapping might interact with DNS entries yet, so I have statically assigned predictable addresses for now.
My IPv6 experimentation led to frustration with the Netgear DG834v3 modem/switch. SixXS requires an ICMP and ICMPv6 pingable endpoint; the latter proved to be no problem. The former appears to be defeated by the modem's firewall (which cannot be disabled). A firewall exception with the Any(ALL) type (other choices being limited to TCP or UDP) can be added to pass ICMP through, with the unfortunate side effect of making the target a DMZ - even for the modem's web interface. Joy!
Placing the modem into debug mode enables telnet access to its Busybox internals. The web interface firewall is based upon iptables and is easily circumvented with a broad accepting rule in the FORWARD chain. This is the configuration I prefer since ALIX, one hop downstream, provides a more sophisticated firewall for the LAN anyway. My exemption rule is, however, periodically deleted and of course lost when the modem is reset. I am now trying to source an ADSL modem compatible with OpenWRT so that I can eliminate the last proprietary component of my network.
1 Update: Martin Levy of Hurricane Electric wrote to let me know that their IPv6 tunnel broker service now has PoPs scattered across the globe, including one in London. This places the service on a par with SixXS and is definitely worth a look if you're interested in setting up a tunnel.
Being cooped up with the occasional antisocial traveller is an unfortunate consequence of using public transport in London. The experienced commuter has an iPod to hand to escape from the noise of the carriage. The iPod, however, is cursed with a lack of support for open formats such as Ogg Vorbis. A neat open source project called Rockbox adds this functionality and much more back in but is currently locked in a firmware access war with Apple, and consequently incompatible with the latest players.
Hence the shiny new Sansa Clip 4GB sitting on my desk. The Clip is a tiny (5.5 x 3.5 x 1.0cm), cheap (£40) portable audio player built by Sandisk. It does not support Rockbox (yet?) but a recent firmwire update added support for the Ogg Vorbis format (it also supports MP3 and WMA). The gadget mounts and charges as a standard USB storage device and lets you copy music straight in without requiring special software, ideal for Linux. I've written a little script to maintain a synchronised subset of my music with the Clip and to transcode music from any unsupported formats.
On the off chance that anyone is musing my recent online and RL presence, or lack thereof, perhaps I owe a short explanation. I'm about twenty days into a sixty day academic marathon (weekends and some evenings included) to finalise the design and implementation of my PhD thesis work by October. Until then I will be mostly unavailable and doing little other than working on this project.
It is going well and on schedule and is set to produce some impressive experimental performance results for my thesis, which will be published next year.
Summer has kicked in and a combination of hot weather and crunch time in academia has lowered my blog output. Nonetheless I've been hard at work on getting EthTV SVN into shape and things are looking good. I finally fixed a rare crash bug that has been plaguing the Windows FFmpeg backend for a few months; it was caused by a bug in weak symbol relocation in MingW GCC 4.3.0.
Improvements in the Windows GUI have brought EthTV a step closer to becoming a usable client. I tested Mono's support for Windows Forms, in order to port the GUI to Linux, but was underwhelmed by what appeared to be the .NET 2.0 style skinned onto a custom toolkit. It almost worked first time, to its credit, albeit with minor graphical corruption. In search of a better interface I built an independent GTK# interface which is working well and looking great under Linux, with some help from the Golem3D project's GLWidget.
This UI development work is in support of a target to deliver a usable multiplatform alpha client and Linux server by Q1 2009.
EthTV SVN has some exciting new features introduced since the last development update. Last month's goal was to advance the integration with Windows Forms and GTK. This was initially prototyped with the Tao and SDL.NET Form control implementations but was subsequently abandoned due to a lack of hardware acceleration. A transition of the underlying AV frameworks from SDL to OpenTK, a managed library not unlike Tao with support for OpenGL and OpenAL, was undertaken to resolve this problem.
OpenGL brings some other benefits, too. Image rescaling and YCbCr to RGB colourspace conversion is now delegated to the GPU through OpenGL shaders, lowering CPU consumption to about 10% on Windows Vista with .NET 3.5 on an E6600 Core 2 Duo. As a comparison, WinTV, a native TV client written by Hauppauge, consumes about 25% CPU. OpenAL has a pleasantly familiar interface, allowing simplification of the audio buffering system that was complicated by SDL's callback paradigm.
The results are now integrated into a Windows Form with a menu and a status bar. Further integration of GUI elements can proceed in the standard Visual Studio designer. This technology has not been tested on Linux, yet, but upstream developers claim that the Forms code will emulate correctly under Mono.
So, after managing to magically delete all of my posts, I’m left wondering what to use this site for.
A couple of interesting points of note at the moment. First, the Saudis ban dog walking because it’s a way for men and women to meet each other. It never ceases to amaze me that a set of religious leaders can have such a low opinion of their members to want to force them so strictly into line. Then the ever forward thinking members of Al-Qaeda want to ban cucumbers in Iraq, could be an April fool, mind.
Now, most interestingly of all, it appears that the Editor and a Cartoonist involved in the Danish cartoon “controversy” last year are willing to face court in Jordan over their involvement in the cartoons, to defend themselves. It would be particularly worrying if they decided to actually attend the court, but it would be interesting to see if the court has a high enough opinion of free speech to acquit them both.
Comment seems unnecessary, the stories stand for themselves.
happy birthday theo
Originally uploaded by charleebrown.
So today would be Theo’s birthday. I can’t believe he’s been gone so long. I can’t believe how often I miss those cuddles. I’m living more and more the life he lived, and wishing he was here to live it with.
Tonight I’m watching Red Skys in a battle of the bands, and hoping they get through to the next round. Yesterday I went to the Ealing Blues festival, and had my tarot read. What a bunch of wank. I mean for starters she said a man would ask me to marry him in three weeks time. Yeah right. She also said that next week I’m gonna feel very sexy and wanted, another unlikely story.
I feel neither of those frankly. The summer party was good, although I did suffer the consequences of tequila, which I think i’ve just about recovered from today.
Here’s hoping that the death card I got for four weeks time brings something good.
Dying is easy
Originally uploaded by charleebrown.
The tears that is. I’m going to have the infliximab treatment. It’s a mild, crohns’ specific, form of chemo therapy. My hair won’t necessarily fall out, but it might. I’m hoping it doesn’t. I know that’s vein, but it’s part of me. It’s 14 years of me. 14 years ago, everything started going wrong though, so perhaps losing it would be a fresh start. But then again, perhaps I don’t want a fresh start. Perhaps I’d like to turn back time to 14 years ago. When Dario held me in his arms, and told me he loved me. When we went for picnics together, when we held hands, when I was happy. When I was loved. The 29th would be his 25th Birthday. We should be having a big party for him, and yet there will be nothing. This year I cannot lay flowers at his grave, because he no longer has one. Tonight I cradled the last picture of him to my chest, and wished so hard that he would come for me, but nothing.
Why didn’t he stay? Why was he allowed to die? And why am I still here, and not there with him. I want him to hold me again, and tell me he loves me like he used to. I want us to have the life we planned together. And we did. We had it all mapped out. The jobs, the house, the children, all of it. We wanted the same things, we clicked. And now, I’m here, where we planned to be together, alone. My friends are getting married, having children, buying houses. I’m still in the same bedroom I have always had, with nothing but clutter on the side of the bed that shouldn’t be empty.
My room’s mess is a reflection of my life. It’s very quiet right now. And it feels like the world is moving slowly. Almost like it might stop, and you know what, that’d be bliss. I’m not ungrateful for those friends I have, I don’t love them any less, but I so want to be with him, and my babies. And I know I’ve said this over and over, and I know it’s dull and boring, and it’s just me whinning on instead of getting on with it, but I can’t get on with it. I’m weak, I’m sick, and I’m not strong enough to do this alone. I’m not sure I can quite express how I feel in words.
I’m not honestly sure it would help.
I guess I’m still crying out for answers. For help. For someone to be my rock. I need a rock. I need someone to hold me in their arms, and make the world disappear, just long enough for me to regenerate some strength, and some hope. That person, I’m afraid, does not exist, or is not mine to hold. I am nothing but a burden these days. I cause nothing but misery and pain. I cannot help my friends through their struggles. Some won’t even tell me their problems because they feel I have too many of my own. That is not the case. I would love to be of help to someone, to be of use. But alas I am not. I really, honestly, feel, that I should cut my loses, and pack it all in. I’m in debt, I’m ugly, I’m mentally and physically sick, and neither are curable. I’m have desires, that if I fulfilled, would cause so much pain. I don’t want anything anymore, I just want to be at peace.
Please Dario, take me away from here.
Originally uploaded by charleebrown.
And now, I’ve got a new Lady in my life, and oh gods does she purr.
I’ve done just short of 50 miles on her today, up to Shepperton lock for lunch with Dad, by the river, in the sun. It was great. And I had one of the best cups of Earl Grey I’ve ever had there!
I can’t wait to take her on holiday, hopefully with my Shasha next summer 
Bye Bye Dave
Originally uploaded by charleebrown.
So this morning I dropped Dave off at the dealership, and collected my new baby Wednesday. I’m assured that Dave will go to a good home. She was my little one for 7 years, but that was just it, little one.
I’m not in a good way and I need some tlc. Aside from being mentally more unwell than usual (lots of depressive moods, not sleeping well at all etc) my physical health is once again on a downswing (I’m fairly sure the two are linked). The crohns got pretty bad again today, almost at it’s worst. I’m exhausted, but I can’t switch my brain off, and have mini anxiety attacks when I try to get to sleep.
And I’m lonely beyond what words can describe. My iPod keeps playing mine and Dario’s song, and it just makes me want to be with him, in his arms, where I know I’m loved. This Sunday coming would be Theo’s birthday, and dear gods I miss him too. His cheeky grin, his amazing hugs, and his always sharp mind. Plus I wouldn’t mind having a smoke with him 
I’m considering asking the docs for sleeping pills, has anyone used them? Are there any that _aren’t_ addictive? I have my next consultation on the 9th. I’m not looking forward to it, because my consultant had decided that if I wasn’t in remission by now (it’s been almost a year since diagnosis), we’d need to consider injections. I’ve found the following list of potential treatments:
So I’m guessing that as he said injections we’re talking either infliximab or adalimumab. A lot of these treatments seem to also be used in chemo. I guess that explains why I feel a bit rough. I guess I’m in a kinda mild chemo state, persistently with a suppressed immune system. But it’s tiring, and it’s no fun. And it doesn’t help the bipolar, and I’m so goddamn lonely!
I have some amazing friends, and I’m very lucky to have them. I’m less lucky that they all seem to be terminally busy. Please guys, I need some tlc. Just chilling out would do me the world of good. Dammit, a hug now and then would help so much! I don’t think I want a boyfriend anymore. I don’t think I actually trust men. Saying that I know I don’t want a girlfriend, cos I know I don’t trust women. Yes I want to be loved, but no, I don’t trust anyone with my heart anymore. Which is sad, cos I’ve got a lot of love to give. I wish I weren’t so broken, I really do. I wish I wasn’t such a burden. Recently I seem to do nothing but cause problems. I’m so sorry guys.
I’m regressing back to the way I was when I was 15. Horribly depressed, anti-social. Drinking, smoking, not sleeping properly, torn up inside. I need to get away from it all. I need to be happy again.
So I may have bought one of these…
Isn’t she beautiful? Her name is Wednesday, and I’ve bought her in black. I should be getting her by the 27th, which is a coincidence. About a decade ago, in a depressed and drunken stupor, I made myself a promise that had things not fallen into place, future wise, by the 27th June 2008, I would allow myself to end it, but that in the meantime, I had to give it a go. I have no idea why I chose that date, it was probably the 27th June at the time or something, and I know I would’ve picked being 25, as back then that’s when I’d wanted to have my first child by.
At one point it looked like things were falling into place, but now not so much. Sam always said there were only three things he wanted in life,
1. Roof over his head
2. Woman in his arms
3. Money in the bank
I tend to agree. A good job, a good partner and somewhere nice to live are about the three key ingredients. And obviously I’d probably want to add kids to the mix to make it perfect, but not without those three in place first. I have a good job. I like my job. I don’t mind living at home (although the fact that it’s not my place bugs me, and the fact that I don’t have the ability to just have people over). I do mind not having someone to cuddle.
I’m doing something about that in a way, I’ve joined a dreaded online dating agency. This is a mixture of exciting and frustrating. I’ve winked at and mailed a few good men (and dredging through there weren’t that many of _my_ type). And I’ve had the odd good one wink at or mail me. But in general I seem to be ignored by the ones I think are most suited to me, or have people who are in no way my type wink at me.
Saying that I have a date on thurs that I’m quite looking forward to, even if it is quite nerve racking. Yes I’m not shy, no I don’t really have a problem talking to “strangers” but I am still a little bit of a weak girly when it comes to the fear of these situations. And let’s face it, I don’t exactly have a huge amount of self-confidence to carry me through it.
But yeah, some things are at least picking up. I’ve had a relatively symptom low month (aside from a blip that had Stu offering to take me to hospital, because he’s a sweetheart like that), and even if someone has given me a goddamn cold, I still don’t feel too bad (although that may be the brandy and wine I had for “medicinal” purposes). I’ve gotta a couple of socially busy weeks coming up. Including dinner with friends, a “practice” session for a new band (i’ll be the one attempting to sing), two Radiohead gigs and at some point, picking up my new bike.
I also, sadly, have to take Lasi back to the vets. For the first time in a decade or more, we took her yesterday when Luki went for her standard check-up, and sadly they think she might have cancer. They found a large “growth” in Lasi’s tummy, and they think that’s the cause. Luki however seems to be much the same. Neither seem unhappy, just old, which is expected at their ripe old age of 17. As long as she’s not in pain, I’ll be ok with it, I just hope she doesn’t have to be put down, as I’m not very good at that (I had to hold Tigger’s paw when they gave him the injection, and it scared me for life.)
And as much as Luki and Lasi aren’t close, they tend to fight, they’ve been getting closer, which tells me one of them’s on the way out. And I’m not sure how the other will be with it. (Lasi was distraught when Micro died).
I know they’re _just_ cats, but they’re my family.
Anyway, when something actually happens, I might blog it, but in the meantime it’s more of the waiting game for me.
Mao Mao being active as usual
Originally uploaded by charleebrown.
Very very sad news today 
http://www.startribune.com/world/19743619.html?location_refer=World
So my beautiful lady is no more. Found on Monday buried under debris, the only (to my knowledge) panda fatality from the earthquake.
She was such a wonderful panda. Always happy, never any trouble, and quite simply the easiest to clean up after. She always left her bamboo debris on her little path where it was easy to gather it, and not scattered about the place. She was friendly and playful, and gentle. Some babies have lost their Mummy now, and I’ve lost my furry namesake.
Today is a sad day
Dell's 2407WFP 24 inch LCD monitor running at 1920x1200 is a sight to behold. Two of them running at 3840x1200 is an even better one. Such was my motivation for wiring up a second monitor in some newly created space on my desk. The result is powered by a GeForce 8800 GTX with NVIDIA's TwinView technology, allowing free movement across monitors with sensible management of fullscreen applications.
Yesterday I ran into a tricky problem whilst reinstalling Windows Vista onto a larger hard disk for my gaming system. The service pack spent about forty minutes installing and then failed with the message "Service Pack did not install. Reverting changes." The error code in the Windows Update log was fairly generic and not indicative of a specific problem. Repeated attempts to install all failed with this error.
The problem turned out to be quite odd. I stumbled upon a solution during a somewhat desperate Google crawl. SP1 will apparently fail to install if the Vista installation is not set as the primary hard disk in the BIOS. I have GRUB on another drive to chainload Vista, for dual-booting Linux, which works fine in normal use. However, in order to install SP1 I had to temporarily set the Vista drive as the primary hard disk and then put it back after installation.
I guess it's a little much to expect Microsoft to test their software's compatibility with bootloaders associated with competing operating systems.
This week provided me with the opportunity to experiment with Apple's Core Image processing framework. Core Image's selling point is its native support for GPU acceleration. Image data is uploaded and maintained in fast graphics memory for the duration of a sequence of processing operations. Adjustments to the processing operation may be made without any data movement to or from the graphics card, giving exceptional interactive performance. Final renders still require data transfer to and from graphics memory in order to reach the backing store but can benefit from the faster computational performance.
Processing operations are written in a subset of the OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL). These are parallel expressions of image processing algorithms which can prove difficult to formulate from more advanced sequential algorithms. Some features of the GLSL language are notably missing, including support for control flow statements and multiple render targets. When a suitable GPU is not available the language can be compiled on the fly to SSE for CPU execution.
The framework is tied together with Objective C. This is perhaps the most contentious aspect of Core Image; and indeed of many of Mac OS X's software technologies. I am not a fan of the language, nor do I see its purpose in a modern development environment. The syntax is deliberately awkward to maintain backwards compatibility with C. C++ fills the modern object-oriented role, whilst managed languages such as C# and Java provide reflection along with other advanced language features. Obj C seems misplaced and it's unfortunate that one is forced to use it to interact with Apple's innovative technologies.
In the space of last week I put together a complete visual effect within the Core Image framework. Its performance was outstanding: real-time for 720p HD images and a respectable 15 FPS at 1080p HD. This is certainly the future of the industry; perhaps not Core Image specifically but there is certainly a place for accelerator-enhanced frameworks in solving the processing needs of increasingly data hungry industries.
Something happened last week. Something that’s taken me back about 5 years in my progress of getting over what Michael did. I got very drunk, and willingly slept with a man whom I knew was nothing more than someone I would want to sleep with. I had no romantic feelings for this man. I had no desire to form any. I just wanted to be validated. This should be mistake enough, but it was not. Said man, during said act, tried to do something I did not want to do. I said no. He stopped. And then he tried again. And I again said no. And then he made one last attempt, a strong attempt, and I said no with my nails. And finally he stopped trying. But in return, he treated me to a dose of his nails. Now why, you ask, did I not push him off and leave? I’m not sure. Perhaps I felt I deserved to be treated like this. Perhaps I thought that someone things could be made better. Perhaps I simply have no self-respect. And then he asked me to sleep on the sofa.
I feel I am terminally bound to be treated like this. To be the laughing stock of those around me. Recently whenever I’ve been in the pub, everyone has taken to making a joke of me. Recently it seems that I am only spoken to to be told what I am doing wrong.
But I persevered. I kept going, kept trying to “live”. Last night I went to a gig, and then onto fabric, knowing only for sure one person who’d be going. Not a close friend, not even I’m not sure a friend, but I knew there’d be others. I didn’t know that _the_ other would be there, but it was a risk. And he was, but still with 9 vodkas in me by this point, I was determined to have a good time, and I did, until they were on the stage, and I was sure there was no way I could get up there, and some bitch at the front of the stage (unintentionally) kicked me in the ribs, the head and then smacked me round the head with her bottle of drink. And this my friends? this broke me. Suddenly all the emotions I’d been bottling up for weeks hit, and I crashed. I was sat alone outside, with a cigarette in my hand, and a dead phone in the other, wishing to die. I will never be a girl who goes to a club and gets noticed. I will never be loved for being beautiful. And I’m beginning to think that my personality is equally undesirable. I have nothing to offer but hurt. My mind is ill, and so is my body. The crohns isn’t too bad at the moment, but it’s also not getting any better, no matter what drugs they seem to throw at it. I don’t know how much longer I can keep fighting the battle when it seems so futile. I know that death is cowardice, but I never claimed to be brave.
So I’ve been on a new routine since I got back from China, the maximise life routine. As many gigs/events/social things as possible, funded by working one weekend day a week. Working 6 days a week is fine as long as I get one day to sleep lots (I’m not gonna get that this weekend :s) and the benefits are huge in that I can do so much, experience so much, and be so happy. Last night I got drunk in the pub and it wasn’t a special occasion. I had 5 hrs sleep then gave a friend a lift into the city to hunt down a parcel at a post office depot before it shut. I tell you London looked so beautiful today, and seeing it from behind the bars of my bike was perhaps the best way.
I got home and Dad thinks he’s found a possible new motorbike for me, a CBF600S. It’s a “proper” bike and he reckons it’s low enough for me, so I guess I’ll be needing a test drive
And now? I’m off to a BBQ. I think I might be starting to enjoy life. And mostly as a solo entity too!
Exhausted
Originally uploaded by charleebrown.
So having arrived home at around 6:30 on Sunday morning (thanks to a damned expensive taxi as trains weren’t starting for another 2 hrs when I left the club), I went to bed, natch. To be woken by pan at 12:00 *groan*. It took me another 2 hrs to get back to sleep, which I was gonna desperately need to get through a night of Psy Trance.
Anyway, I got some, got ready and headed to Ealing to meet Pan and friend and go on to Brixton for Psychadelic Academy 005. We headed in just in time for Astrix’s set, having raided the glow stalls. Then came Infected, Oh Boy. The guitarist was fucking amazing. At the beginning of the set he was even playing with his teeth! I love infected. Had my feet not hurt so much from wearing stupid boots (note to self trainers in future for dancing) I’d've been dancing away with my glowsticks all night. Pan and friend bailed early leaving me and Helen to get closer to the music. The only downside? They had techinal difficulties that lead to the music stopping abruptly 5 times. Apparently this was because they were drawing too much power, must’ve been tripping something, but it was damned annoying. But they played 3 of my favs including Becoming Insane which I must say I believe to be one of the best tunes ever.
Then I whimped out and headed home, sharing yet another mini cab with a stranger going kinda the same way. I got in around 6am, and woke up around 15:00. Today I’ve mostly played Guitar Hero (I’m on the Hard level now) and caught up with Desperate Housewives.
No more heavy weekends for a while now, although still got stuff planned. This is the life
Torture
Originally uploaded by charleebrown.
So Friday night I was reminded that pubs don’t close at 23:00 anymore. Not in a good way as such, my phone had died so I had no idea what the time was, and to be honest, I was having a good time with the guys from work and Helen, so I didn’t notice, until we left at 1:30am. Hmm, and I was working the next day.
But I did it, I got up, went to work, did a full day’s work, went home and got ready for the Torture Garden birthday bash at SE1. I went with Conrad, a guy whom until recently I worked with, and his Dominatrix GF Claire (who is HOT!). It was an interesting experience. En route every single person I passed stared at me for looking freakish, when I got there I blended into the background. There were some outragious costumes, and people of all flavours. Goths, Cyber Punks, Trannies, Furries, Slaves and Dominatrices, Nurses, Doctors, and some creatures that I can’t find names for.
I can’t really begin to say what went on, to be honest my memory is a little clouded by vodka redbulls, but I’ll say this, it was good. The music was varied and good, the people were very friendly. Although you knew everyone was assessing everyone else, no-one was judging you, and you never felt threatened at all. I felt quite comfortable there, even if I didn’t want to participate in most of the “entertainments”
Pity there were so many hot straight women, and so few hot straight men.
The development version of EthTV can now stream live TV from the server to the client and reproduce it with audiovisual synchronisation. There are some technical challenges remaining in the core architecture which must be resolved before integration with a GUI proceeds. I can now successfully demonstrate the client running under both Linux, with Mono 1.9.1, and Windows, with .NET 3.5. The amount of platform-specific code in the client is very small, a testament to the powerful combination of C# and the Tao Framework.
Rhythmbox, an excellent Linux audio player for the GNOME desktop, has supported the media keys for quite some time. A recent change to the mmkeys plugin gave the stop button correct functionality instead of simply pausing, which previously caused problems with radio streams.
The patch wasn't quite right, however. It caused critical warnings in the terminal and broke streaming radio titles after the stop button had been pressed. I've put together a patch to resolve this and it's now being tracked in this bug report.
Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 RC1 has just made its way onto my laptop. As I was setting it up I noticed something odd: the 'cursor blink' option in GNOME Terminal had been removed. A little Googling suggests that this feature was now tied to the global cursor blink settings in Preferences -> Keyboard. But who in their right mind wants to choose between an ugly great, blinking cursor block in the terminal or a non-blinking thin line cursor in all other text boxes?
This madness has been picked up in a bug report, but it looks like Hardy has been snapshotted at an unfortunate moment. So I've put together a patch to forcibly disable blinking in the GNOME Terminal. I've uploaded AMD64 and i386 binaries to save people having to rebuild their software. I chose not to create a whole package because it is likely that Ubuntu will release their own update later down the line and my package would conflict with theirs.
Source patch:
Pre-patched binary, copy to /usr/bin/gnome-terminal:
I've been experimenting with a FreeBSD firewall in a somewhat obscure configuration. My home network needs a mix of bridging, selective NAT and packet filtering. This is all implemented on my ALIX firewall for convenience. The following diagram explains why:
Computers on the LAN have a mix of private and publicly routable IP addresses. The public /29 subnet is not large enough to cover them all. Thus, those with private IPs must be NAT'd to one of the public addresses whilst the others are routed as-is. In addition the firewall has two network interfaces (one to the LAN and one to the modem) that must be bridged to avoid introducing a further subnet. Finally the firewall must perform packet filtering duties for security.
This all proved very difficult to implement in FreeBSD. In spite of its reputation as a solid networking OS, the interaction of these features is not well-documented and the mailing list support is equally sparse. I was determined to make this work, however, initially failing with IPFW and subsequently building a working configuration with PF.
First I will note the gotchas that tripped me up along the way, in the hope that others might not make the same mistakes:
With those points in mind, here is my complete firewall:
# === Macros ===
int_if = "vr0"
ext_if = "vr1"
bridge_if = "bridge0"
lan_ips = "{192.168.1.0/24 XXX.XXX.XXX.16/29}"
nat_from_ips = "192.168.1.0/24"
nat_to_ip = "XXX.XXX.XXX.21"
bittorrent_ips = "XXX.XXX.XXX.19"
ident_ips = "XXX.XXX.XXX.19"
ssh_ips = "{XXX.XXX.XXX.17 XXX.XXX.XXX.18 XXX.XXX.XXX.20}"
bittorrent_ports = "6881:6889"
# === Tables ===
table <ssh-bruteforce> persist
# === Options ===
# Don't filter on loopback. (Not necessary and would collide with antispoof.)
set skip on lo0
# === Scrub ===
# Clean incoming packets on all interfaces. Scrubbing outbound packets would
# be redundant, save for those originating from the firewall itself. We
# assume the firewall machine is secure.
scrub in all
# === Queueing ===
# === Translation ===
# NAT through the external interface from a private subnet to a specific IP
# bound to the bridge interface. This IP may be an alias.
nat on $ext_if from $nat_from_ips to any -> $nat_to_ip
# === Filter rules ===
# Deny inbound traffic only. Assume all outbound traffic is legimitate.
block in all
# Deny hosts that have been banned for connection overloading.
block in quick on $ext_if from <ssh-bruteforce>
# Protect the loopback interface from spoofing. We cannot protect the bridge
# interface or it would block NAT.
antispoof quick for { lo0 }
# Allow free inbound traffic on the LAN interface. We will do all
# external-to-LAN filtering on the vr1 interface.
pass in quick on $int_if
# Maintain outbound state on all interfaces.
pass out quick on $int_if
pass out quick on $bridge_if
pass out quick on $ext_if
# Open holes for packets destined for LAN services. This does *not* cover the
# bridge itself.
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to $bittorrent_ips port $bittorrent_ports
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to $ident_ips port auth
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to $ssh_ips port ssh \
flags S/SA synproxy state \
(max-src-conn-rate 5/20, overload <ssh-bruteforce> flush global)
# The bridge needs its own set of service holes, applying to both internal and
# external hosts.
pass in quick on $bridge_if proto udp from $lan_ips to any port domain
pass in quick on $bridge_if proto tcp from any to any port ssh \
flags S/SA synproxy state \
(max-src-conn-rate 5/20, overload <ssh-bruteforce> flush global)
Finally, to keep the connection throttling tables clear you will need to install expiretable (from ports or source). Then add a line like this to /etc/crontab to expire entries after, for example, 5 minutes:
*/5 * * * * /usr/local/sbin/expiretable -t 300 ssh-bruteforce
Update: New rules to protect the bridge itself.
I think I have the travel bug! OK so here’s the things I wanna do next (in no particular order)
I suppose I better start saving and working weekends!
Oh it’s so good to be home :) I love my bed, it’s squishy and wonderful. I love my xbox because it has guitar hero and friends to play with. I love my friends.
All the really good pics are now in the following flickr set http://www.flickr.com/photos/charleebrown/sets/72157604761101483/
All the videos are on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/user/charleencbrown
And all the blog posts are here, natch.
I had an amazing time, and I hope one day I’ll get to go back there 
Thanks again to Frilly for his persuasive tactics, and Morgan for his lifestyle guru advice, which actually came in tres handy in those leading to panic moments.
And to Lloyds TSB for making it possible
I think I might not exist today. No replies to texts sent, nor emails. No fb activity. Even some IMs being ignored. Hmmm.
What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger right? In which case I must be as strong as an ox right about now. Today kicked off with sad news from a friend, whom I desperately want to go back and look after now, good thing I’m on my way home. I had my final breakfast with Sharon and Jennifer, and we planned to say our goodbyes at lunch, as my car wasn’t coming for me til 14:00. So straight after breakfast I went back to bed, as I’ve now had this headache for 5 days and desperately needed some more sleep. One hour later, I’m woken by a knock at the door. A man greets me, says nothing then calls someone on his mobile, who turns out to be Novia from the panda club, saying that we have to leave earlier as there are roadworks which will close the only road out of Wolong from 14:00 til 17:00 and even if we left at 13:00 we wouldn’t make it through all the checkpoints in time. So I rushed back to the reserve to say my goodbyes to all, had an early lunch at 10:30, and promptly got in the car at 11:00.
We hit a few traffic jams along the way, but most seemed to pass after 15 mins or so standstill. The last however was solid for at least an hour. And of course when it finally started moving again, our car wouldn’t start, as my driver had left his music on and the air con running without the engine running. One flat battery. De ja vu of getting stuck last time hit in, and I almost despaired. I tried to tell him there was no point in continually trying to start it as it wasn’t turning over but he didn’t understand. I offered to push but he said no. He made some calls and wandered about, and next thing I know a police officer plonks himself down in the seat next to me, I feel some people pushing and we’ve bump started. Yay. I was however mildy worried that we’d stall again soon as my driver was insistent of always being in the wrong gear. Starting from stopped in 2nd etc. But we made it most of the way without bother, aside from him letting the same music tape loop for 5 hours, which nearly drove me crazy.
I started recognising where we were, and relaxed a bit, only to think at one point, hang on we should’ve turned right there. But I assumed he knew what he was doing, and afterall last time the journey was from the hotel to the bus station so no doubt he could be taking a more direct route. But then he stopped, in the middle of the road and got out to ask directions. And then he stopped again, and got out again. This time he hailed a taxi and told me to get in. I pointed out that I wasn’t going to pay for the taxi on top of the 500 yuan I’d paid him to take me there, so he paid the taxi driver, and finally after 5.5 hrs, I arrived at my hotel, desperately dehydrated and bursting for the toilet!
It’s calmed a little since then. I strolled outside and thankfully the tea shop that had been shut last time was open, so I have some lovely teas to share with my team at work. I also purchased the two packs of panda cigarettes I was lacking in my collection. And then dinner. I scoured the whole menu concerned that I wouldn’t find a thing I liked. Especially when things had names like “the bull frog is hot and spicyâ€Â “ the sharks fin is batteredâ€Â “taste is special†etc. But I found some safe looking “shredded meat in sauce†and something that’s picture looked like the lovely corn pancake Jennifer had introduced me too at the wolong. And some dumplings. Now bear in mind that this would’ve cost no more than 100 yuan at the wolong. I was expecting double, but not the bill of 455 yuan that arrived :s I only had 300 yuan on me, and they didn’t take cards, but when I pointed at my room key and room number, they sorted to have it added to my bill, phew.
And now I sit here in my room that’s too hot, with the same old headache, and only two ibuprofen left (which I’m saving for the long flight). I’ve also decided that if it’s not tooo much, I’m gonna try and upgrade to a class that has fold flat seats for the long flight as I’m feeling very delicate, and not sure I can hack 14hrs in this state with no sleep this time.
Moan over, it’s been an amazing adventure. I’m not sure I’d do it alone without a phrase book again, but I would definitely love to go back there. I’m gonna miss Sharon, Jennifer, Dan Dan, Tri and Shao Yi quite a bit methinks, not to mention how much I’ll miss You You, Mao Mao, Zhu Yun, Wu Gang, Si Jia, Yi Bao, Fu Ni and all the ickle fuzzy wuzzy baby pandy bears.
I can’t believe it’s been a week already! That means I’m more than half way through :( Today has been fairly normal, but my health is deteriorating so we’ve explained to my keeper (with the help of another keeper, Su Yi who speaks quite good english) that tomorrow and wednesday, I’ll just watch, take photos, and move the karts.
It rained today, so most of the pandas were inside most of the time and I didn’t get any photos, which is kinda good as it means that I can upload some more of my backlog. Also just now after dinner, I asked Dan Dan to take me to shopping (they have these little not so legal shops here) and hers was so much better than the normal one as it had cigarettes, lighters (a god send as I’m on matches as both my lighters failed me) and SUGAR!!!! I can finally drink the jasmine tea here, and the peppermint tea I brought with me for my tummy.
It also had sweeties and chocolate
Tomorrow may be my last day on earth as I may explode with excitement, tomorrow I get to play with the BABY pandas
I can’t wait.
What a day! Healthwise I’m feeling increasingly worse each day, but reckon I should still make it back to the UK in one piece (I’m not however looking forward to the long flight in this condition). This morning I just followed my keeper around taking photos, and then at 10:30, the big deal, I played with 12 baby pandas. Or should I say they played with me? If you watch the video (on youtube) you’ll see that mostly they were trying to eat me. I even have a bite mark on the inside of my left elbow where one of them bit me. Vicious but delicious creatures they are.
I also walked up the 100 or so steps to overlook the reserve but a) my camera died at the top b) there were too many trees to really see anything. So there’s some nice shots of the steps and that’s about it.
Zhuyun, one of my pandas, is horny. Her hormone levels say she’s in season, so I guess they’ll be mating her soon :) I’ve almost bought every souvenir the shops and stalls have to offer, I just can’t resist! I can’t believe tomorrow’s my last day here. I will seriously be doing nothing but taking photos methinks. I’ll really miss these gorgeous bears, and the friends I’ve made out here.
The Thursday I think I might whimp out and take a taxi to the hotel. I’m fairly sure I’ve got enough cash for it, and I’m not sure I wanna risk getting stranded again, especially as I’m gonna have to be up at 3am on Friday for a taxi to the airport. Why oh WHY did I book a flight that departs at 07:50?
And now for dinner, interweb, bath, reading and bed, I’ve gotten quite used to this routine. I wonder if I’ll continue devouring books (that’s at my pace of one in 4 days being devour, 1 per month being normal), when I return. Perhaps not, as I’m really looking forward to a good solid dose of guitar hero and WoW!
The BBC has published a wonderful story suggesting that at a barely referenced conference an unnamed collection of Muslim “scientists” and clerics have suggested that the world should adopt Mecca time instead of GMT, because GMT was forced upon the world by the British empire (let us ignore the fact that a prime meridian in Europe conveniently allows the international date line to run through the Pacific Ocean) and because Mecca is the centre of the world. One unnamed geologist apparently stated that:
…unlike other longitudes, Mecca’s was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.
Now, it isn’t entirely clear what that means. However, let us assume for a moment that it means the line of longitude that Mecca sits on, and therefore which goes through true North, also passes through magnetic North. Unfortunately, given the current position of magnetic North, this is not the case (once in a while it might be, given that the pole moves, but the same is true of anywhere…). However, Google Earth suggests to me that one city for which this IS true, is Las Vegas. So there you have it, Las Vegas is in perfect alignment (roughly…) to magnetic North. Now we know the true centre of the Earth.
Wow. OK so I woke up still feeling unwell, and had to explain to my keeper that I needed to take it easy. Of course his first question was “You catch cold?†and then I had to go about explaining that no, I wasn’t contagious, and yes I’m taking medicine, etc. He told me “rest more, eat more†so ok, now I get to take it a little easier in the mornings. Good news too, You You is much better today She’s eating again and moving around. Mao Mao is her usual obedient self, but Zhuyun is still not happy. HCG says she’s not sick and not depressed but he doesn’t know how to explain what’s wrong with her. As it’s possible she’s coming into season I reckon she’s hormonal and stroppy.
I had the BEST afternoon. I sat and held and cuddled 3 pandas who are about 1 year old. They were Sijia (the one I had my photo taken with), Ebao (not sure of the spelling) and Fu Ni (again not sure of the spelling). I think Ebao and Fu Ni are boys and I know Sijia is a girl. They were amazing. I have never felt so happy and at home. Ever. Interestingly, I looked closely into Fu Ni’s eyes, and firstly they have a blue ring around the outside of their brown eyes, and secondly, it really looks like he was wearing contact lenses :s.
I really can’t find the words to express how completely amazing it was. There are photos and video making their way to flickr as soon as this net connection can handle it.
I’m getting a little homesick I must admit. I miss my boys. I miss Ers & James, Pili & Ivan and the lads from work. And I miss my family. BUT in a way this isn’t gonna be long enough. If there were broadband here, I could possibly live here (I’d need a car too). Tomorrow will be a “normal†day, and on Tuesday I’ll play with baby pandas, I think I might explode. Jennifer and Sharon have realised quite how insane I am but I think they’re OK with it (at least I hope they are ;)).
I wish I could’ve stayed holding those pandy bears forever!
Hmm, not such a great day today. For starters I woke up with a headache, but carried on regardless. Panda number 1, Zhuyun wasn’t very happy, but cooperative nonetheless. Panda number 2 was less so. She hadn’t eaten much of her food, and refused to come inside so we couldn’t clean her outside enclosure.
In the afternoon we sat and observed her for a while, and my keeper looked very worried. He thinks she has something wrong with her stomach. She didn’t eat any of her food today, and was curled up in a ball looking like she couldn’t get comfortable. This afternoon I sympathised. A sudden rush of tiredness and some feeling sick and abdo pains meant I skived the afternoon shift to go to bed. Fingers crossed tomorrow we’ll all be perkier, as tomorrow afternoon is play with big pandas day.
Well today has been quite something. Hard toil again this morning, this time for Zhu Yun, Wu Gang (a male) and You You. HCG let Jennifer takes pictures of me feeding Wu Gang but said “No stroke, he male, tough, might kill you, he not gentleman” Then they introduced Na Na a virgin, to Lu Lu and quite feisty male. Na Na showed him her bottom lots (good sign), but when he responded with interest, she got scared and ran away
The afternoon was laid back and sunny. Some bamboo shoots and snacks for the pandas, some reading for Charlee, and then the highlight so far. I had my picture taken with a little girl panda who’s about a year and a half old called Sijia. It was amazing. I honestly can’t find the words to describe it other than SQUEE.
On Sunday I’ll have 5 mins play with some Toddler pandas (probably the ones going to Beijing for the olympics) and on Tuesday with baby pandas (less than a year old). When rolling a cigarette at lunch time one of the bosses pointed and said he was impressed, and later said that when I play with the babies on Tuesday I can have more than 5 mins
At 16:00 they made another attempt with Lu Lu and Na Na. At first Na Na seemed to not quite understand the logistics, and Lu Lu was fiercely trying to show her how. They seemed to try a few positions (at one point it looked like an attempt for the karma sutra) and eventually, just as I’d walked away, apparently they successfully mated. I’m not sure how long before we’ll know whether Na Na is pregnant, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for her.
I can’t believe it’s Friday already though, it really does seem like I only just got here.
Last night I was ravaged in my sleep, and not in a good way. Today I awoke with 5 bites, and they’re bigguns groan. Ho-hum. Anyway, breakfast at 8:00 was interesting. When I asked what the food was the woman’s response was “Chinese food”. I identified the bowl of peanuts and managed to request that to be taken away, and tucked into the rest. There was some kinda vegetable that I have never seen before, and that was very spicy, so I didn’t have much of that. Also some pickled cabbage, a boiled egg and some very bland rice porridge (aka over cooked rice in lots of starchy water). But it was sufficient and shared with Sharon (another Volunteer, from Wimbledon) and Jennifer (a researcher from San Diego Zoo who is “stalking” the pandas with her sound equipment to analyse their mating calls.
And onto my first day of work. I was equipped with a uniform (a kinda fawn coloured jump-suit) and led into the staff area, aka the breeding pens. Here I did lots of hard manual work, hauling bamboo around, sweeping cages (including shovelling shit as expected), and was twice complimented on being strong. We did this for 3 female pandas, Zhu Yun (Bamboo Kiss), You You (Good) and Mao Mao (Furry). Zhu Yun is in the breeding area, but You You and Mao Mao have their own little enclosure’s in the main part of the Panda Garden. The garden itself is home to the baby and children pandas, and the adults that are being used for breeding, as well as any sick or needy pandas. The surrounding mountains are home to the rest of the wild Panda population. At 11:30 we broke for lunch, which was again shared with Sharon and Jennifer, and consisted of Lemon Chicken (yum), Shredded Potato (again yum), some green vegetable that tasted like spinach (nom nom), rice (of course) and Jasmin Tea. And then I hijacked the unsecured wireless upstairs for a little while before heading back to work.
This afternoon was odd because first there was a presentation thing with some Islamic dudes, so all the keepers were at that. But then came the best bit. My keeper, He Chang Gui (Priceless), let me hand feed Zhu Yun some bamboo shoots and bread and also LET ME STROKE HER. WOW. I mean I’ve actually touched a living breathing panda.
Then HCG was whisked away to help cage a panda that’s being taken to the Ping Yang (?) Zoo. And then he was accosted by a journalist. Then we gave all three pandas some more food, and HCG told me that he thinks Zhu Yun might be pregnant :). At 16:30 there was the grand opening of the Panda Garden Police station. And now, I’m back in my room, typing this and downloading pictures from the camera. Apparently tomorrow HCG will help me get some photos of me feeding the pandas. At some point I’m also gonna have photos taken with pandas, and get to play with children and baby pandas
I can’t believe it’s only 17:30 and I’m already exhausted! Oh and woe is me, I seem to have forgotten my iPod charger, so I’m not gonna listen to any music til the plane trip back!
Oh and did I mention how incredibly beautiful it is here? Also another interesting thing I learnt today, relates to my first toy, and my likely reasons for panda obsession. When I was born, my Mummy put a panda cuddly toy in my cot with me. It was her mascot from when she’d worked on Z-cars (affectionately known to the crew as Panda Cars). My first word was my name for this toy, Baba. Baba has gone everywhere with me since. Baba is with me here. Today I learnt that Baba means Daddy in Chinese (I knew it meant Daddy in arabic, but not Chinese too). So my first word was Baba, my second was Daddy, did I think Baba was my Daddy?
Well today’s been quite something. Breakfast was my first test of bravery, putting a whole load of unknowns on my plate. I found a nice chap from Sheffield with his Chinese friend, who kindly let me sit with the for breakfast, and complimented me on my skill with chopsticks. Apparently this guy was only supposed to be in China for a year with the Consul, teaching, but has stayed for 3 and loves it.
Then I checked out and was told that no they couldn’t call me a taxi, but nonetheless one found me soon enough. Lovely guy kept trying to make conversation with his zero english and my zero chinese, this resorted to pointing and smiling and him showing me leaflets and me pointing to pandas. Arriving at the bus station I was told there were no buses to the Wolong today groan but I could get a bus to Ying Xiu and change for a bus to the Wolong, so I bought my ticket, had a smoke, and was pushed on a bus I wasn’t sure was mine. I tell you, I’m sure that China is a great big building site. And often along the way you saw the clear levels of poverty. It was very humbling when we passed a man who’d clearly lost both legs, I’d say in his 30s, walking (in a kinda of side to side rocking motion of stumps on improvised shoes) up the road, smiling and waving to the people in the bus. In general the terrain here is beautiful, the architecture not so sympathetic.
It was a long journey, and two hours in, having just past an accident, our bus broke down. Sounded like the clutch had gone, but no-one spoke english so I can’t be sure. Eventually another bus turned up to take us, but there weren’t enough seats so i was perched on a little ledge on the floor. That was quite uncomfortable I can tell you. The bus stopped somewhere in the mountains for toilets, refreshments etc, and one of the girls at the counter said panda? and I confirmed. This meant that when the bus driver’s assistant saw the sign for Wolong in Ying Xiu, she had the bus stopped and bundled me out at a traffic police station. Great I thought, until it was clear I wasn’t anywhere near a bus stop, the police shewed me away with “No english” and I panicked a little looking up at the mountain and not knowing how much of it I’d need to walk with my 30kg of luggage. I called the reserve who told me that they didn’t think they could call me a taxi. And thankfully a man overheard and offered me a ride in his car to the hotel. I have no idea if he was a licensed mini-cab driver, I frankly don’t care. 100 yuan later I was at the panda inn hotel. I rejoiced at the real toilet, shower bath and general state of my room.
Once I’d unpacked I headed to the Panda Garden to sign in. Apparently my volunteering starts tomorrow, so I had a chance to wander round and take some piccies, which I hope to upload soon. OMG REAL PANDAS
Real fluffy pandas, climbing trees, fighting, eating, sleeping and generally being the cutest most wonderful beautiful creatures in the world. Apparently I can not only have a photo with an adult, but also have 5 mins play with an adult, AND 5 mins with a baby! Of course it costs, but it’s worth it. I won’t however be doing a lifetime adoption while I’m here as that’s 300,000 yuan (about £23k). Don’t quite have the money for that I’m afraid. So then it was nearly 5 so I headed back to the hotel for dinner (which is at 5). Dinner was lovely. Bamboo, Beef and Onions, very tasty nothing too spicy, and thus far not disagreeable at all.
At this point i’d like to slap the likes of pickard for winding me up so much about the state of things here. I have electricity, toilets, and good food, what more could I wish for?
And so now to find the unsecured wireless network upstairs and post this
Slof's Battlemage Robes for Exnem is my first stab at a simple Oblivion mod. My goal was to modify the Battlemage Robes from the popular Slof's Oblivion Robe Trader mod in a manner more appropriate for Exnem's replacement mesh. This required a whirdwhind tour of some modding tools, including Blender and NifTools, and some assistance from the Bethesda Forums to deal with the rather steep learning curve.
The results are simple, but represent my first steps into the modding world.
This trip has got to last me a lifetime, and so apologies but I’m gonna use this space (hey it’s mine, I pay for it) to remember it.
My lovely carbon neutral taxi arrived on time and whisked my parents and I away to heathrow. I’d spent the morning “wasting time” on t’internet and guitar hero. I said goodbye to my cats, and Chia Chia, and off we went. Terminal 3, there are not many restaurant options, and so dinner was a very much overpriced burger from the three bells.
Andy arrived at 20:20 to wave me off, and at 21:00 ish I went through security. And since then it’s been me and Baba against the world. Got my aisle seat near the toilets on the plane, and no other passenger next to me, joy, I could spread out.
That flight felt like it lasted a lifetime. I managed to finish listening to the harddrive simply waiting to take-off (we were delayed by an hour due to technical problems). Read two chapters of my book and decided to try and sleep. Seeing as it was dark, I was tired and the cabin’s lights were all out, and armed with two complimentary pillows, this shouldn’t've been hard. I managed, I think to sleep about 6 times for about 10-30mins a time. Sod’s law when I finally drifted off properly I was woken 30mins later for breakfast. Dinner on that flight I had my “special” meal. This is supposed to be catered toward people with Crohns and similar diseases. I had Salmon. I was brave I ate it all, and I actually quite liked it. But the accompanying chicken salad was a dry as could be!
I even attempted to drink myself to sleep with a glass of red wine, but even I could tell it was cheap and disgusting, and I couldn’t finish it.
We touched down with a nice smooth landing at Hong Kong, and I was whisked through transfer as I didn’t have much time, and told me bags might not make it onto my Chengdu flight.
There was one other non-chinese person on the flight to Chengdu, and suddenly the fact that I can’t speak any chinese was rather daunting. But nevertheless, 4 missions on FFXII later, we touched down in Chengdu, and I wished and hoped and prayed and YES YES there’s my bag :D I also had my first run in with those toilets. The ones where you have to crouch. CIVILISATION anyone? I mean in what way shape or form is that a) hygenic or b) convenient? And I’m not sure it saves them any money, so I simply can’t see the point. Of course, having left the cubicle I see that there were normal toilets too. Mental slap.
Again I was pounced on by a woman saying taxi as I came out. I think I did actually get a licensed mini cab but who knows. And then the journey to my hotel. We passed many MANY building sites, and lots of neons. There was even a “Foot Washing Parlour” in many coloured neons :s The chinese drive with reckless abandon. You know the kind where you see people just taking risks like their not risks, and coming out absolutely fine (*cough Morgan cough*) that’s how they drive. Although credit where due, I saw a lot of potential accidents on my way here, but none came to fruition.
And now I’m in the hotel I’ll spend tonight and my last night in. There was a little message for me in reception with instructions. I have two beds, power, and a REAL toilet. I didn’t get here til like 23:00 though so dinner was crisps, oreos, chocolate drinks and fags from the offy outside. The water tastes funny, the iced tea is delicious and appears to have some FF looking characters on it. The oreos are chocolate cream filled, the chocolate is Dove (aka Galaxy) and the crisps, well red appears to be chilli flavoured not ready salted but I’ll live. The best bit is the cigarettes. There were 11 packs with pandas on them! I bought 2 cos they told me they were 60yuan each, but they must’ve meant 60 cents or something, cos my total bill was only 40 yuan. I shall buy the rest tomorrow methinks.
And now to bed. Got to be up for brekkie and then the bus ride to the reserve, and then my adventure can truly begin
But I do know when I’ll be back again. For those who care, here’s my itinery
Monday 14th April
GMT 22:35 LHR -> HKG flight CX254 (cathay pacific)
Tuesday 15th April
Local time 19:25 HKG -> Chengdu flight KA1428 (dragon airways)
Overnight in Binjiang Hotel then a bus to the Wolong in the morning.
Staying in the Panda Inn and working in the Panda garden.
Friday 25th April
local time 07:50 Chengdu -> HKG flight KA1411 (dragon airways)
local time 14:50 HKG -> LHR (cathay pacific)
I should have internet access at lunchtime china time (7 hrs ahead of uk), so should be able to pickup facebook, email etc.
I’m gonna miss everyone, but I intend to have a totally bodacious time and be back armed with tales and pictures to last a lifetime.
Development on the EthTV project progressed steadily throughout March. I rewrote the communications server to support continuous streaming and SOAP proxying. The server now delivers live TV over HTTP. As the screenshot shows below, it can even serve standard web clients.
The EthTV client adopted the SDL and FFmpeg C# wrappers of the Tao Framework project. Video playback currently works correctly with aspect correction and deinterlacing. Audio playback and audiovisual synchronisation are under development and on track to deliver a usable client in the near future.
My Mum just came up with a great one “Everything good in life is either, illegal, immoral or makes you fat”
Femme feral
Originally uploaded by charleebrown.
Tonight I went to see my old school mate Luki in her debut Burlesque show (with partner in crime Anita). They rocked. The whole evening was quite an eye-opener. The first act was a BIG girl. Bigger than me, but dammit she worked the floor. And most of the girls were curvy. They’re bodies were not air-brush perfect, yet they were a damn sight sexier than a lot of the women who are supposed to be icons.
These women were liberated. They loved their bodies. And it showed because in turn everyone else around them did too. And it made me think, that if they can be sexy, maybe so can I. And the other shocker? The ratio of women:men was about 5:1, I’d say Burlesque might be a great thing we need to see far more of!
I finally got round to retiring my eight year old Demon Internet account. Demon served me well for many years on 56K dialup, 512K ADSL and, until recently, 2Mbit ADSL. The company is no longer what it used to be; once kings of the UK ISP business. Slow transit, packet loss and a frustratingly poor customer service finally moved me to migrate to Zen Internet.
I'm now rocking with a 4.5Mbit connection and multiple static IPs for proper inbound connectivity. Peak time network performance is fantastic: I can still max the connection at midday. 
Can I just say what a fabulous evening I had tonight. There was drink (I think I had, wait I’ll count… 5?) and I’m not _utterly_ wasted (unlike the girl who shared the cab home with me, who puked *groan*), I danced with fabulous gays in a fabulous gay bar, made some wicked new friends and got to know some others a little better (Gawain, I apologise for the extent in your case ;))
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