SemiArticulate

Random Musings
May 15th, 2007 by Lucas

It’s not the economy, stoopid

Well, in today’s crikey, Charles Richardson opines that the masses have already chosen Kevin Rudd as the next prime minister in his article titled “Thanks for the Budget, but we’ve already made up our minds”

He proposes that the lack of bounce in the opinion polls shows that the average voter, whilst applicative of the budget, has not influenced their voting intentions.
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May 5th, 2007 by Lucas

Gliding Status Report

Today I managed three flights, 14, 8 and 14 minutes, all solo.

As I have already completed my A certificate (16 years ago, mind you), I didn’t need the daily checks. (It helps that I have flown quite a few times with today’s duty instructor.

I need to work on the landing finesse (getting the aiming point right) in high wind situations. I’m sure that I’ll get some practice at that over the next few months.

Totals: 21.7 hours, (1.5 solo) on 68 (8) flights

May 2nd, 2007 by Lucas

HD-DVD processing Key

As an act of preservation, and a stand against censorship i post the following number:

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

It’s the processing key for most of the HD-DVDs that are out on the market at the moment. This should allow you to code your own player for these disks, escaping the proprietary lock in from the DVD association.

Don’t Ask me how to use it. I don’t know. I don’t have a HD-DVD player, or any HD-DVD disks for that matter.

April 29th, 2007 by Lucas

Gliding Status Report

Well, I have started gliding again (mid January). And, no not that dangerous hang gliding. The real deal.

I did gliding as kid in 1990. I Currently have 65 launches, and 21.1 hours. (Including 5 launches and 52 minutes as pilot-in-command or solo flights)

I went solo yesterday for the first time in sixteen years. It was a short flight of 14 minutes (there was very little lift – about half a knot up surrounded by 3-4 knots of sink).

April 29th, 2007 by Lucas

Long time no updates!

Yes, I’ve been a bit slack lately. Or that I don’t seem to have any time.. Or I’ve been asleep. or all of the above.

October 2nd, 2006 by Lucas

Where we’re at

It has been a while since I last updated this blog.

What’s happend? Sarah unfortunately had a miscarriage (hey, at least we know we are fertile!!). I’ve had a hernia corrected (hiatus hernia). I also fell down Sue’s back steps and sprained my ankle :-(

Ana is down for the rest of the school holidays (the cats are less than impressed!)

August 20th, 2006 by Lucas

Yay!

I’ve finnally upgraded to 2.0.4!

In other news, Sarah is pregnant! The baby is due on the 8th of March.

We have a full house next weekend, with nearly everyone coming to visit!

April 29th, 2006 by Lucas

One Dreary Saturday

As you can see, I haven’t upgraded to WP2 yet.. maybee one day :-S

I has been raining lightly since early last night.

In other news, My grandfather died last week. He was 87. Not a bad innings, and he was very active right up until the end. Everyone was there. It was nice to see everyone, but we should do it under happier cercumstances.

March 25th, 2006 by Lucas

Sarah’s Log

Sarah has now got a blog of her own! You can go there by clicking this link. It hasn’t got much more than a trackback to this site :-(

February 12th, 2006 by Lucas

Catch Up

Well, what’s happened since the last update?

Well, I got married to Sarah, and Moved to Melbourne.

I’ll post piccies of the wedding when I can find electronic versions. The wedding went off with only one hitch (hehe).

The move went surprisingly well. the only ongoing problem is that Themis doesn’t like Roggie.

February 12th, 2006 by Lucas

We’re back!

Yes, I have finnaly got this thing back up and running…

All I have to do now is get WordPress 2.0 installed.

December 28th, 2005 by Lucas

Intelligent, Insmelligent

Intelligent Design has to be one of the most unintelligent thought processes ever to come out of the US. Apart from the faulty presumptions in the theory, and “proofs”, it seems to me that the goals of the ID crowd will utimately fail.

ID basically is a way of explaining away evolution, by positing that the universe was designed. One of the theories is that some orgainisms are too complex to have evolved. (Such as the flagellum in E.coli – a tail with a “motor”). All of current examples have been debunked (see the ID wiki entry above) which should be enough debunk the whole ID movement, but certain political weight has been brought to bear on the whole debate by the conseratives and Christian Right. (Bush in the US, Abbott here in Australia)

It seems to me that ID is a way of saying “the intelligent designer did this, there is no need to think about it any more”, which is really anti-scientific.

The main problem with ID is in explaining the gap between scientific knowledge and the universe, by saying it was designed (by God/Allah/et al) is that when scientific knowledge catches up with the universe the god-botherers will have no “proof” that god/allah/et al exists. All that effort into getting ID (or as some have put it sanitised creationism) into schools will have worked against the movement to get religion back into schools (and mainstream society as the only way of thinking).

December 26th, 2005 by Lucas

I don’t need to eat..

Seeing as my main blog is offline (the server is currently on its way to Melbourne), I thought it was about time I dropped a few notes on LJ.

Well, after eating much too much yesterday (started eating at about 0900, and didn’t finish until 1500), I won’t need to eat again until sometime tomorrow :-S

I got married last Thursday, went off without a hitch (well, at least one.. the one that was planned :-) ).

I’m going to Bundaberg for New Years with friends..

Sarah is cleaning the flat..

Ana is reading her new book.

Australia isn’t doing too bad in the Cricket against South Africa (although we did lose an early wicket).

Michael’s new cat is psycho (keeps wanting to bite everyone, and chases imaginary insects).

July 8th, 2005 by Lucas

London Bombings

I feel sorry for all the victims of the London bombings.

I feel sorry for all the britons that will have to endure even more draconian “security” measures that will do bugger all for security.

Like the new ID card scheme that looks like it will contain your life history on government-run servers (EEK!)

It will be interesting to see what the british government will do over the next six months or so.

Next thing we’ll need papers to do anything.. remind you of anything? USSR style? Nazi style?

And to those fanatics: Terrorism is NOT a part of islam (or christianity, or hinduism, or any mainstream religion for that matter)

July 3rd, 2005 by Lucas

Why I am not an Anarchist

In this article, esr describes the only solution to the problem of instability of a consitiutional democracy (as they exist today here in Australia, the US, and elsewhere) is a complete anarchy (or as he puts it “no government”).

I agree with the statement that the question of good government reduces to “who can be trusted to wield the first use of force wisely and morally?”, but my opinion diverges from that point on.

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