Made by Mikal – Page 25

Lost and alone in the dark

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 9, 2015
Post category:Diary

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…

Walk to the Southern Most Point

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 1, 2015
Post category:Diary

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. [kml: 20150818-2]

Pen making with my eldest son, or how to win at the $20 boss

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 25, 2015
Post category:Projects with the kids Wood turning

Andrew, my eldest son, was enrolled in a competition recently by his school. The competition is called the $20 boss, and is run by the National Australia Bank, which is one of the largest banks around here. The basic idea is that the bank loans each of the students $20, with which they start a business. The goal is to make a profit, with the bank expecting to be returned $21. 10% of money over that should go to charity, and the rest is the student’s to keep.

Other kids seem to have chosen to make muffins, cookies, or drinks. Well, except for the kids who made candles. Andrew on the other hand had a think, and decided to ask me to teach him to make wood turned pens. This was exciting to me as Andrew hasn’t previously shown a particular interest in wood craft.

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The Crossroad

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 8, 2015
Post category:Book

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.

Terrible pong

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 7, 2015
Post category:Coding_club

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.

Searching for open bugs in a launchpad project

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 5, 2015
Post category:Launchpad

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)

Recent wood turning

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 3, 2015
Post category:Wood turning

Just a quick dump of some recent bowls:

The End of All Things

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 3, 2015
Post category:Book

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.

Geocaching with a view

Post author:mikal
Post published:July 29, 2015
Post category:Diary

I went to find a couple of geocaches in a jet lag fuelled caching walk this morning. Quite scenic! [kml: 20150729-1]

Chet and I went on an adventure to LA-96

Post author:mikal
Post published:July 28, 2015
Post category:Diary

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. I also made a quick and dirty 360 degree video of the view of LA from the top of the nike control radar tower: [kml: 20150726-2]