http://www.alleged.org.uk/pdc/2009/10/25.html

We use Windows desktops at work, but naturally nowadays even our customers expect web sites to be deployed to Linux servers. Here’s a couple of things I learned in the process of deploying a Django app from my workstation—running Windows 7—to a development server running Debian GNU/Linux 5 ‘lenny’. …

Taso and her marvellous mythical beast

On Friday evening, as part of the Comica festival, a group of kids, their parents and I got to watch three videos in the cinema at the Institute of Contemporary Art: Sweet Dreams and Story from North America by Kirsten Lapore and Bryum & Kapok 03: A Lilt by Overture. The DFC's Patrice Aggs slipped into the cinema with us before she headed off to do her Black Powers talk and we had a good giggle while watching Sweet Dreams when the cupcake starts getting jiggy with the butternut squash.

Sweet Dreams from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

After we watched the animations, we went and drew pictures to music I'd picked out. Some of the songs had evocative lyrics and others had quirky instrumental bits I thought might give us ideas. I started off showing them some pictures from my Morris the Mankiest Monster book and said that while I'd been painting it, I'd been listening to a song called Hunnu by Egschiglen's Mongolian throat singers. It always makes me crack up because it sounds to me like a bunch of short men jumping around in the mud, which was just perfect for the book.
( More drawings and music links under the cut )

Returning from the ICA and Eddie Campbell's talk; some nuggets of gold in there, and I think Jrmy has them in her drawn notes. Good! #

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This also happened today:

• 21:31 There's piccolo music playing over the tannoy at charing cross tube station. Also, eddie campbell signed my book and I didn't babble!
• 23:18 Ruffled shirts, chainmail, fishnets, mouse masks, leathers and pink moustaches. Ant people are diverse! I am at an adam ant convention.

Well, I used a lot of the suggestions that came my way from that post the other day! I was pretty pleased with the turnout of readers for that question, I must admit. I guess it's because you hear a lot that people don't give a darn about history in this country, if depressing yearly polls from the Dominion Institute mean anything, but it's clearly not the case among my livejournal followers. You guys are great!

I had to do a general sweep that involved a good range of places, professions, backgrounds and time periods, so you know, not everyone's favorite author is going to be in there but I sure did like the range in suggestions. Looking at it now I wish I had someone from the NWT (not one! for shame) and New Brunswick. Stompin Tom is from New Brunswick but he's also sort of from everywhere.  I could have put the Irvings in there, I think they control history in NB as well as anything else.

I was all crazed out with strep throat while I did this, but listening to Radiolab shows and a burning passion for Canada I guess(?) kept me going.  You can find the image in today's National Post, along with an article about the Historica/Dominion merger! Interesting stuff.


( picture is under the cut because it's huge )


Here is the legend, the rows are sort of wonky but you'll figure it out:

Row One (bottom):
James Wolfe, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, David Suzuki, Louis-Joseph Papineau, John A. Macdonald, Terry Fox
Row Two
Emily Carr, Joseph Howe, Joey Smallwood, Robert Bartlett, Louis Riel, Joy Kogawa
Row Three
Marshall McLuhan, Samuel de Champlain, Marilyn Bell, Wayne Gretzky, Emily Murphy
Row Four
Rene Levesque, Sam Steele, Farley Mowat, L.M. Montgomery, Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Trail, John McCrae
Row Five
Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker), Oscar Peterson, Rush, Pierre Berton
Row Six
Les Filles du Roi, Mary Pickford, Skookum Jim Mason
Row Seven
Charles Best, Frederick Banting, Pauline Johnson, Mordecai Richler, Tecumseh, Stompin’ Tom Connors
Row Eight
William Hall, Tommy Douglas, Marc Garneau, Roberta Bondar, Rosemary Brown, John Diefenbaker
Row Nine
Shanawdithit, Louis de Buade de Frontenac, David Thompson, William Shatner

does anyone have a copy of margaret drabble's the garrick year that i can borrow? it appears to be OP, it's not lendable at the library, and used copies are going for, as one says, stupid money.

thank you in advance.

So at last I dropped my money on Spencer Fitz-Gibbon's book on Goose Green, Not Mentioned in Dispatches. I've read Adkin, of course, and Freedman's official history squats on the shelf, but Fitz-Gibbon's expanded doctoral thesis is lunging off in a new direction and draws on a lot of original interview material that paints a very different picture of the battle.

A lot of other authors have danced around this. However, Hugh Bicheno is clearly a big booster of Fitz-Gibbon and even Freedman finds his scholarship impeccable. The mythic version of Goose Green lies in tatters and what we now have is a picture of a battle in which Colonel Jones's rigid doctrine and ham-fisted planning shattered on first contact with the Argentine enemy. Perversely, it was Jones's death, his madcap charge that earned him the VC, that broke the command bottleneck, freeing his subordinates to ditch Jones's clumsy plan and respond to the altering situation.

More digging is required. But it does suggest an interesting wargaming puzzle: a game in which the British doctrine changes half-way through the battle. Though of course that only creates a perverse incentive for the British player to have his CO killed.

Okay, so I'm feeling a little fragile today. Last night was another company buildbeer, following a leads' presentation in which I gave a barnstorming talk. Several of the Swedes came up to me afterwards to thank me. I think I'm settling in here. I'm getting to that level of familiarity with the Swedes that they feel free to insult me, which is as it should be.

Anyway, there was food and beer. At some point in the evening schnapps happened and there were drinking songs that seemed to roughly translate as 'down in one'. I will clearly have to learn these songs. I ended the evening with one of the artists' hugging me and telling me how much he loved me.

Good times.

However, the price comes heavy. It took a while to get moving this morning. I was in such a wrecked state that Moto, disgusted with my piss-eyed condition, went out shopping on her own. I eventually managed to get myself cleaned and shaved and went out hunting for a barbershop. I ended up in the Arab quarter, having my hair done by an very handsome Lebanese lad. We somehow negotiated the transaction despite my lack of Swedish and his lack of English.

In game news we've been playing a bit more Borderlands as three player co-op. (Sorry I didn't accept your invite the other night, Ben, but I was packing up at the time.) The game definitely works better when everyone develops their powers and you can get some team synergy going. It works less well in the open areas but tightens up in the more channeled map sections. Still, the interface is shit and works poorly for a co-op game.

Of course I'm now waiting for Tuesday and the arrival of CoD: Modern Warfare 2. The company will buy a bunch of copies but QA will almost certainly shark them before I can get near and so I have my copy on order at GAME.

Tuesday is also St. Martin's day when the Swedes traditionally eat goose. Moto wants to go out for a goose dinner, complete with Gooseblood soup, so we are planning to visit the restaurant beneath the Town Hall.

I'm at the Comiket event tomorrow, sharing a table with Goodbrey, Baillie and Noble. Last year was LUC and dancing videos, 2007 was post 24 hour comics.

Have some links of cool stuff.

Footwear made out of train and bus seat material. I think this one's my favourite - the Bakerloo line.

The same place also sells Peter Blake pop art, slightly weirdly.

The Sustrans shop has some rather neat stuff currently - I'm tempted by the bike lights (my dynamo's not working properly right now) - though I've got older lights I ought to just re-supply with batteries and use temporarily. The wrapping paper is nice though, and the cycling poncho is something I've been thinking of getting for a while now.

More information about the Ashmolean re-opening.

Just one green link - Google's new household energy monitor (though it looks like you have to get an associated gadget too).

The new washing machine (specially chosen for its green credentials, energy efficiency and so forth) arrived yesterday. It's currently going through its first wash - unenvironmentally empty of laundry or even detergent, as the accompanying booklet says that you need to do an initial wash like that in order to set it up for full functioning. Or whatever.

Yesterday was a busy day overall - I had aimed to work from home, but in the end a deadline that needed us all working together in the same room meant I had to stay in the office working there. Which was fine, but we'd set up a number of home appointments that day that R had to carry out by himself instead. It all went smoothly and I was really glad it could all work ok despite me not being able to come back and help/advise/be a part of the conversation.

( washing machine washing machine washing machine )

( doors and windows )

You might think that sounds like enough to be getting on with, but the bit that I'm getting particularly excited by is the kitchen revamp. ( kitchen burblings )

Yikes! It will be work and expense, but already I'm very much looking forward to it all happening. And of course the shed-replacement action too. What on earth will I find to spend my time on next year when it's all done I wonder? I know it's not as simple as that of course!

Emma Thompson removes her name from the Polanksi petition:

http://www.feministing.com/archives/018745.html

She said, while she supported Polanski as a friend, a crime is a crime. I don't know whether she had realised the extent of Polanski's crime, but she is now fully aware. She will remove her name from the petition - in fact, she said she would call today and sort it out. Even though, she stressed, Polanski has had some truly terrible experiences in his lifetime, experiences that we couldn't even imagine and which should not be taken out of the equation, she agreed that she could not put her name to a petition asking for his release.

More to come, later