Updating all the timezone stuff one needs on a LAMP environment: (necessary in Australia because they changed the daylight savings start date once again). I haven't yet been able to convince my hosting provider to go through all this hassle; and the tables are outdated - so Aussie visitors may see an incorrect time on some of my websites for the next week. 

Test:

# zdump -c 2009 -v Australia/Sydney | grep 2008
Australia/Sydney  Sat Apr  5 15:59:59 2008 UTC = Sun Apr  6 02:59:59 2008 EST isdst=1 gmtoff=39600
Australia/Sydney  Sat Apr  5 16:00:00 2008 UTC = Sun Apr  6 02:00:00 2008 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=36000
Australia/Sydney  Sat Oct  4 15:59:59 2008 UTC = Sun Oct  5 01:59:59 2008 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=36000
Australia/Sydney  Sat Oct  4 16:00:00 2008 UTC = Sun Oct  5 03:00:00 2008 EST isdst=1 gmtoff=39600

(If the first two lines contain 'Mar' instead of 'Apr' you've got old tables). e.g. this is what an unpatched system would report:

# zdump -c 2009 -v Australia/Sydney | grep 2008
Australia/Sydney  Sat Mar 29 15:59:59 2008 UTC = Sun Mar 30 02:59:59 2008 EST isdst=1 gmtoff=39600
Australia/Sydney  Sat Mar 29 16:00:00 2008 UTC = Sun Mar 30 02:00:00 2008 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=36000
Australia/Sydney  Sat Oct 25 15:59:59 2008 UTC = Sun Oct 26 01:59:59 2008 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=36000
Australia/Sydney  Sat Oct 25 16:00:00 2008 UTC = Sun Oct 26 03:00:00 2008 EST isdst=1 gmtoff=39600

Debian:

# apt-get update 

# apt-get install tzdata

PHP5.x

# apt-get install php5-dev 

[fetch and save] http://pecl.php.net/get/timezonedb

# tar zxvf timezonedb-xxxxxxx.tgz

# cd timezonedb-xxxxxxx

# phpize

# ./configure

# make

# make install

# echo "extension=timezonedb.so"  > /etc/php5/conf.d/timezonedb.ini

# /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

MySQL:

# mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo | mysql -u root mysql -p

(ignore all the errors from Riyadh{NN}, iso3166.tab, and zone.tab) 

Those two or three people who actually visit this website may have noticed that I haven't done much with it lately. I think it's time to declare it over and done with - though I'll leave the archives here indefinitely should anybody wish to see the timeline of happenings. 

Blogging is so 2002. Social nets are so 2004. I'm tired of it all. Seems the world has tired of my writings as well (or more accurately it's just another channel of stuff amongst the 200+ million channels of stuff to choose from on the web). Thanks to the RSS fiasco and a host of other factors (e.g. search behaviour, PageRank changes, my use of a 'non-standard' community platform, etc.), traffic has plummeted way beyond rock bottom. We're now down to 3 visitors a day on average, down from 100,000 back in October and even the 20-30,000 around Christmas.

There's no point anymore writing into space - as I mentioned a few weeks back. The photo albums for friends and family are largely unseen. Except for two of you, friends and family are too intimidated by online spaces to touch the place.

The community site has been a dismal failure - a lot of hard work wasted. 

It's coming up on one year since I arrived in Australia, and so much has changed. Work and family consumes my time, as it should (at least family). Work is what it is. Blogging and social nets are a thing of the past, and tremendous time-wasters at that.

It was fun. Now onto the next chapter - of a book which probably won't be written online.

I'm pretty much ranted out.

Today the Australian government officially apologized to the aborigines for taking their children away a few decades back 'to give them better lives'. 

However I don't think we're going to hear an apology any time soon for taking their continent away... 

Still trying to figure out cricket. It's not as easy as one might let you think. For instance, here's the intro on wikipedia:

--- 

The bowler, a player from the fielding team, bowls a hard, fist-sized cricket ball from the vicinity of one wicket towards the other. The ball usually bounces once before reaching the batsman, a player from the opposing team. In defence of the wicket, the batsman plays the ball with a wooden cricket bat. Meanwhile, the other members of the bowler's team stand in various positions around the field as fielders, players who retrieve the ball in an effort to stop the batsman scoring runs, and if possible to get him or her out. The batsman — if he or she does not get out — may run between the wickets, exchanging ends with a second batsman (the "non-striker"), who has been waiting near the bowler's wicket. Each completed exchange of ends scores one run. Runs are also scored if the batsman hits the ball to the boundary of the playing area. The match is won by the team that scores more runs.

---

Sounds pretty easy doesn't it? Well keep reading:

---

The aim of the bowler's team is to get each batsman out (this is called a "taking a wicket", or a "dismissal").^[3] Dismissals are achieved in a variety of ways. The most direct way is for the bowler to bowl the ball so that the batsman misses it and it hits the stumps, dislodging a bail. While the batsmen are attempting a run, the fielders may dismiss either batsman by using the ball to knock the bails off the set of stumps to which the batsman is closest before he has grounded himself or his bat in the crease. Other ways for the fielding side to dismiss a batsman include catching the ball off the bat before it touches the ground, or having the batsman adjudged "leg before wicket" (abbreviated "L.B.W." or "lbw") if the ball strikes the batsman's body and would have gone on to hit the wicket.^[4] Once the batsmen are not attempting to score any more runs, the ball is "dead", and is bowled again (each attempt at bowling the ball is referred to as a "ball" or a "delivery").^[5]

The game is divided into overs of six (legal) balls. At the end of an over another bowler from the fielding side bowls from the opposite end of the pitch. The two umpires also change positions between overs (the umpire previously at square-leg becomes the bowler's umpire at what is now the bowling end, and vice versa). The fielders also usually change positions between overs.

Once out, a batsman is replaced by the next batsman in the team's line-up. (The batting side can reorder their line-up at any time, but no batsman may bat twice in one innings.) The innings (singular) of the batting team ends when the tenth batsman is given out, leaving one batsman not out but without a partner. When this happens, the team is said to be "all out". (In limited overs cricket the innings ends either when the batting team is all out or a predetermined number of overs has been bowled.) At the end of an innings, the two teams exchange roles, and the side that has been fielding bats.

A team's score is reported in terms of the number of runs scored and the number of batsmen that have been dismissed. For example, if five batsmen are out and the team has scored 224 runs, they are said to have scored 224 for the loss of 5 wickets (commonly shortened to "224 for five" and written 224/5 or, in Australia, "five for 224" and 5/224).

---

Strange that the recent decision to pull Australian troops out of Iraq received hardly a mention down under. Nor on the U.S. news sites. It's obviously not good news for the Bush coalition. But I fail to understand why they aren't talking about it here either. 'Let's just slip away quietly' seems to be the message.

Finally found a reference, on a website in India. 

Happy Australia Day - celebrating the landing of the first group of European colonists (actually convicts that the British were trying to get rid of) at Sydney Cove in 1788.

Wherein we ingest large quantities of alcoholic substances and roast all manner of meat products on the BBQ.  

Care for a kanga steak, mate? No? That's OK, we've got bangers and burgers too.  

Coulda' sworn I saw a notorious hotel heiress in the foyer this morning. But then reality set in and I discovered it was somebody else - of course. You see, sometime in the last several months it seems that Ms. Hilton magically went from 'small and perky' to about a 38DD (dinner for 6) cup size; likely requiring an entirely new wardrobe as she would've literally busted out of any of her old rags.

Dang. Must be about 5 kilos of silicon in those things. Surprised she doesn't fall over.

The girl I saw was a dead ringer except for a) the distinct lack of bling, and b) the lack of such extreme cleavage.

Though I should note: One of the more pleasant aspects of living in Australia is that 'small and perky' is as alien a concept as American football.  

The latest headlines over here mostly revolve around one Corey Worthington; an otherwise unknown 16-year old boy in Victoria. 

His parents went away and left him alone for the weekend. What do you expect happened next?  

Well, duh! The kid threw a party and invited all his friends. Then they invited friends. Before you know it, there are 500 teenagers doing what teenagers do when the 'rents are away. Par-tee!

The police were called in due to alcohol, vandalism, and I presume noise complaints. The kid is now facing not only criminal charges, but a $20,000 fine for the excess police that were needed to clear things up. I guess he can forget about wiping up the spilt beer and keeping it a secret from his parents.

They found out on ABC news.  

The summer has brought out all manner of strange creatures I've never encountered before. Huge black nasty bugs that look like they bite, and they try incessantly. Worse than the flies, and they look downright dangerous. One thing you learn quickly here is that anything that looks dangerous - probably is. 

Curl worms - we've found a bunch of these in the yard. It's a grub, but these things are monstrous, half an inch thick and three-four inches long. Similar to the tomato bugs you'd find on occasion in the states. I hear the aborigines eat these when there's nothing else in the bush to live off of.

Think I'll pass.

Next, I think they're called 'cicadas' (sp?)  - which are the loudest cricket like things I've ever heard. If you wander through a grove of trees, the sound level can approach the threshold of pain. You can't sleep if one of these decides to sit outside your bedroom window.

I've already described the 'R2D2 bird'.  But the summer has brought even stranger noises. There's a 'crying baby' bird that sounds like a newborn kid with soiled britches. And now - all day I've been hearing the sound of a 56k modem connecting and establishing sync. It's coming from outside the window. Walking around the campus, it turns out that it's coming from the treetops, not from an office window. I'm just gonna' call it a 'modem bird' until I figure out a better name...

China has moved to ban ultra-thin plastic bags as a packaging material, citing environmental concerns.

This move on the surface sounds laudable. However I note that here in Australia, the skinniest plastic bags are sought out by consumers as opposed to the more durable bags and wraps manufactured overseas.

I was informed it was because those manufactured here, especially the micro-thickness bags - are in fact bio-degradable. Perhaps they're cellulose instead of poly-eth or poly-prop. I haven't researched it enough to know. But perhaps there might be potential for a booming export market in bio-degradable containment materials.

I think that the Sydney Harbor fireworks display takes the cake as being the world's best. What is interesting is that they manage to maintain the title year after year and leave the competition in the dust - when you would think that at some point somebody would start to catch up. Apparently the way to stay on top is to double the amount of explosives every year. Last night's display was totally awesome. 

What you would think of as an awesome grand finale anywhere else in the world is just the background display here. What's more, that's what's happening on just one barge in the bay. Now imagine taking your most awesome spectacle, and having it happen simultaneously on five or six barges in a line down the harbor, all of them completely synchronized - to each other and to the background music. 

Then if that weren't enough, you've got the display on the harbor bridge itself - the centerpiece. The spectacle here is completely over the top.  Some of us were surprised to still see the bridge standing at the end. Wave after wave of synchronized streams of light shooting into the sky along the length of the bridge.   

part 1

part2

...One has to wonder if the U.S./Baghdad campaign might have turned out differently had the Sydney pyros been put in charge of the 'shock-and-awe' part.

Today is the feast of St. Stephens, otherwise known as Boxing Day in commonwealth or former commonwealth countries. In the U.S. it's simply known as the day after Christmas.

Here it's a major holiday more or less on par with the day before.  It has its origins in British social class, where you gave gifts to equals on Christmas, but gave them to lessers on the following day. Receiving a gift on St. Stephens Day would certainly be ego-deflating, as it would mark you as a peasant or serf. 

Anyway - in Australia, it's more famous as the day the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race starts. We might go up to the top of the escarpment a bit later to watch them all sail by.  

We dropped over to the local Anglican church for the Xmas eve service - which consisted of showing a movie about the events that transpired a couple thousand years back, interspersed with Christmas carols every five minutes. 

Topped it off with the obligatory 'Silent Night' but with a twist - we got to choose whether to sing it in English or aborigine.  We had the words for both, along with a tribe from the Northern Territories leading the way.

 What's that? Tastes like shit.

Finally a bit of respite from the weather. Now I'll probably get accused of gloating instead of whining - but this is when I can say that it's generally nice to be here rather than there. In this case - there being the NorthEast U.S. where this picture came in from...

Let's contrast that with this typical Christmas shot from NorthEast Australia...

I know, I know - life is tough.

A bit of monsoon rains off an on for the last few days (no I'm not complaining - it's actually reasonably warm outside). This morning we got a little over an inch in about 20 minutes - or about 1cm/hour. The morning drive was a nightmare. With the wipers on full speed they couldn't brush the rain away fast enough to actually see anything over a couple of meters away. Everybody was crawling along at 20km/hr on Highway 1. It was a bit flooded near the Princes Highway - about a foot deep in places. (The Princes Highway is very much like El Camino Real back in California - it's the old highway; lined with business establishments, whereas the coast highway [highway 1 or the F6] is the newer freeway.)

One of Isabella's favorite songs at the moment... 

Dashing through the bush, in a rusty Holden Ute,
Kicking up the dust, esky in the boot,
Kelpie by my side, singing Christmas songs,
It's Summer time and I am in my singlet, shorts and thongs

Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut !,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.

Engine's getting hot; we dodge the kangaroos,
The swaggie climbs aboard, he is welcome too.
All the family's there, sitting by the pool,
Christmas Day the Aussie way, by the barbecue.

Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.

Come the afternoon, Grandpa has a doze,
The kids and Uncle Bruce, are swimming in their clothes.
The time comes 'round to go, we take the family snap,
Pack the car and all shoot through, before the washing up.

Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden ute

Colin Buchanan / Nick Bland 

There are three rather spectacular waterfalls within a few minutes of home. Here's the 'little' one...

Apologies for the lack of clarity. It's a cell phone picture.