Older blog entries for mikal (starting at number 1055)

On running

I've been running for a little while now, but I don't mention it here much. I think I mostly don't mention it because I normally just post photos here, and I don't tend to stop and take happy snaps on my runs. The runs started off pretty modest -- initially I struggled with shin splints after more than a couple of minutes. I've worked through that and a couple of injuries along the way and am consistently doing 5km runs now.

That said, my longest runs have been in the last week when I did a 7.5km and an 8.1km. I'm building up to 10km, mostly because its a nice round number. I think ultimately trail running might be the thing for me, I get quite bored running around suburbs over and over again.

Its interesting that I come from an aggressively unsporting family, but yet all of my middle aged siblings and I have started running in the last year or two. Its a mid-life crisis thing perhaps?

Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog running fitness sport
Related posts: First jog, and a walk to Los Altos; Martin retires from his work netball league

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Syndicated 2015-09-13 13:46:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

CBC Navigation Course

So today was the day long map and compass class with the Canberra Bushwalking Club. I liked this walk a lot. It was a good length at about 15km, and included a few things I'd wanted to do for a while like wander around McQuoids Hill and the northern crest of Urambi hills. Some nice terrain, and red rocks gorge clearly requires further exploration.

                                       

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Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog pictures 20150912 photo canberra bushwalk
Related posts: Goodwin trig; Big Monks; Geocaching; Confessions of a middle aged orienteering marker; A quick walk through Curtin; Narrabundah trig and 16 geocaches

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Syndicated 2015-09-12 00:32:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Lost and alone in the dark

I've been doing the Canberra Bush Walking Club navigation course for the last couple of weeks, and last night's exercise was a night time dead reckoning navigation session. The course is really good by the way and I've been enjoying it a lot.

It should be pointed out that I also wasn't lost, or alone, but it sure was dark.

Anyway, the basic idea of the exercise is that you're given a hand drawn map, and a set of markers. You determine the bearing from each marker to the next, and the distance to walk. You then set off on your adventure. Getting a bearing or distance wrong matters, because you either need to stop and find the next way point, or carry the mistake on to the next marker. The markers were generally things like "gate in fence" or "two big trees".

It turns out for me the hardest part is walking in a straight line when its dark. If you look at the GPS logged map below, you can see that the consistent error is that I tend to veer slowly to the right. That's a pretty useful thing to know, because it means I can correct a bit more for it next time. I got the line of march (not the bearing!) pretty badly wrong on the way to the dam, and that resulted in a bit of an adventure to find that way point. I think we missed the next way point as well because we carried the mistake on by setting off from the wrong point on the dam for the next leg.

I really enjoyed this little walk, and I think I need to do a few more of these to get better at this skill. It seems arbitrary, but if my GPS ever fails and the weather is terrible it might come down to a skill like this keeping me moving in the right direction or not.

Also, I think this would make a super good exercise for scouts. Now to try and convince them its fun...

Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog canberra bushwalk navigation
Related posts: Goodwin trig; Big Monks; Geocaching; Confessions of a middle aged orienteering marker; A quick walk through Curtin; Narrabundah trig and 16 geocaches

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Syndicated 2015-09-08 16:17:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Walk to the Southern Most Point

I've just realized that I didn't post any pics of my walk to the most southern point of the ACT. The CBC had a planned walk to the southern most point on the ACT border and I was immediately intrigued. So, I took a day off work and gave it a go. It was well worth the experience, especially as Matthew the guide had a deep knowledge of the various huts and so forth in the area. A great day.

                                       

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Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog pictures 20150818-southernmostpoint photo canberra bushwalk
Related posts: Goodwin trig; Big Monks; Geocaching; Confessions of a middle aged orienteering marker; A quick walk through Curtin; Narrabundah trig and 16 geocaches

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Syndicated 2015-08-30 20:33:00 (Updated 2015-08-31 08:04:10) from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

The Crossroad

ISBN: 9781743519103 LibraryThing

Written by a Victoria Cross recipient, this is the true story of a messed up kid who made something of himself. Mark's dad died of cancer when he was young, and his mum was murdered. Mark then went through a period of being a burden on society, breaking windows for fun and generally being a pain in the butt. But then one day he decided to join the army... This book is very well written, and super readable. I enjoyed it a lot, and I think its an important lesson about how troubled teenagers are sometimes that way because of pain in their past, and can often still end up being a valued contributor to society. I have been recommending this book to pretty much everyone I meet since I started reading it. Tags for this post: book mark_donaldson combat sas army afghanistan Related posts: Goat demoted

Syndicated 2015-08-06 22:04:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Terrible pong

The kids at coding club have decided that we should write an implementation of pong in python. I took a look at some options, and decided tkinter was the way to go. Thus, I present a pong game broken up into stages which are hopefully understandable to an 11 year old: Operation Terrible Pong.

Tags for this post: coding_club python game tkinter
Related posts: More coding club; Implementing SCP with paramiko; Coding club day one: a simple number guessing game in python; Packet capture in python; mbot: new hotness in Google Talk bots; Calculating a SSH host key with paramiko

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Syndicated 2015-08-06 17:21:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Searching for open bugs in a launchpad project

The launchpad API docs are OMG terrible, and it took me way too long to work out how to do this, so I thought I'd document it for later. Here's how you list all the open bugs in a launchpad project using the API:

#!/usr/bin/python

import argparse
import os

from launchpadlib import launchpad


LP_INSTANCE = 'production'
CACHE_DIR = os.path.expanduser('~/.launchpadlib/cache/')


def main(username, project):
    lp = launchpad.Launchpad.login_with(username, LP_INSTANCE, CACHE_DIR)
    for bug in lp.projects[project].searchTasks(status=["New",
                                                        "Incomplete",
                                                        "Confirmed",
                                                        "Triaged",
                                                        "In Progress"]):
        print bug


if __name__ == '__main__':
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Fetch bugs from launchpad')
    parser.add_argument('--username')
    parser.add_argument('--project')
    args = parser.parse_args()

    main(args.username, args.project)



Tags for this post: launchpad api
Related posts: Taking over a launch pad project; Juno nova mid-cycle meetup summary: the next generation Nova API

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Syndicated 2015-08-03 23:10:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

The End of All Things

ISBN: 1447290496 LibraryThing

I don't read as much as I should these days, but one author I always make time for is John Scalzi. This is the next book in the Old Man's War universe, and it continues from where The Human Division ended on a cliff hanger. So, let's get that out of the way -- ending a book on a cliff hanger is a dick move and John is a bad bad man. Then again I really enjoyed The Human Division, so I will probably forgive him. I don't think this book is as good as The Human Division, but its a solid book. I enjoyed reading it and it wasn't a chore like some books this far into a universe can be (I'm looking at you, Asimov share cropped books). The conclusion to the story arc is sensible, and not something I would have predicted, so overall I'm going to put this book on my mental list of the very many non-terrible Scalzi books. Tags for this post: book john_scalzi combat aliens engineered_human old_mans_war age colonization human_backup cranial_computer personal_ai Related posts: The Last Colony ; The Human Division; Old Man's War ; The Ghost Brigades ; Old Man's War (2); The Ghost Brigades (2)

Syndicated 2015-08-02 00:39:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Geocaching with a view

I went to find a couple of geocaches in a jet lag fuelled caching walk this morning. Quite scenic!

         

Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog pictures 20150729 photo sydney
Related posts: In Sydney!; In Sydney for the day; A further update on Robyn's health; RIP Robyn Boland; Weekend update; Bigger improvements

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Syndicated 2015-07-28 16:38:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Chet and I went on an adventure to LA-96

So, I've been fascinated with American nuclear history for ages, and Chet and I got talking about what if any nuclear launch facilities there were in LA. We found LA-96 online and set off on an expedition to explore. An interesting site, its a pity there are no radars left there. Apparently SF-88 is the place to go for tours from vets and radars.

                                       

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I also made a quick and dirty 360 degree video of the view of LA from the top of the nike control radar tower: