2009-07-03
Well two of our engineers passed their safety training today after a long course. They are now licenced to go on oil rigs and make the 2 hour helicopter flight out to the oil rigs. Know how to use a life vest, survival suit, life boat, jump 200 feet from a rig into the water, etc.
SCADA (System Control And Data Aquisiton) systems are great – you can see what the make up of your oil is and how it is flowing the second it pops out. But someone has to go and set it all up. I’m just glad that it is not me… then again with a broken ankle I am not much good anyhow.
2009-07-02
So I didn’t actually get to vote in the Triple J top 100 of all time. I feel really stupid to have missed it! I was just asked (live on radio) whether I had voted and I stupidly said yes intending to get straight off the phone and onto the voting, but it was closed! So below are my top 10 songs of all time, some for technical reasons, all for emotional. Thought it might be of interest to some 
Meme time!
In no particular order:
- Gorecki – Lamb. Our wedding song About finding that person that just completes you, that complements and helps you want to be a better person. A beautiful song and a beautiful voice.
- Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana. Changed everything, and yet so simple. Influenced a generation.
- Shame – Stabbing Westward. My favourite angsty teenage song. Once went to a Live (the band) concert just to see Stabbing Westward play support, and then left
The man has an incredible voice. - H – Tool. I love a lot of the older Tool music, this particular one reminds me of a close friend who died very young in very unfortunate circumstances.
- We’re in this together – Nine Inch Nails. I love pretty much every NIN song, but this one really talks to me about regardless of everything going on, none of us are truly alone.
- Fade to Black – Metallica. One of their best songs, and one that influenced me to learn guitar in the first place.
- Burn – The Cure. an amazing (and dark) song from The Crow soundtrack. One of their best in my opinion. Admittedly takes me back to school
- Cornflake Girl – Tori Amos. Beautiful, powerful and disturbing. Worth looking into the deeper meaning.
- Classical Gas – Mason Williams. An incredible guitar piece that puts me in an almost meditative state when I play it. Technically challenging but also a joy to play and listen to.
- Pathetique – Beethoven. Such an exquisite piano piece, and when played well covers about the entire scope of human emotion. Fun to play too, but I’ve yet to master it
There are so many more songs I love, and I’m sure given more time I’d rejig this another dozen times. So I’ll leave it there Apart from one last honorary mention:
- Space Cadet – Kyuss. Couldn’t leave this off. This 3 person rock band had such a big sound, such a complex and incredible mix. Great fun to play on the bass. Demon Cleaner also very worth listening to.
Amazing it went relatively smoothly.
First, we go to the Beijing 2nd Hand Automobile market located South West 4th ring road. After being told by a few people there that motorbikes couldn’t be handled here, we found the Beijing Vehicle Management Center.
Second, I had to take the motorbike around the back to the “inspection” hall where they would inspect it. It turns out they just verified I owned it, my paperwork was in order, and that was it. Cars had to take their plates off. Not our my motorbike, just left it on. I then proceeded to park in the underground parking.
Third, we had to check if I had any outstanding fines on the bike. Nope! Normally, one would pay 35 RMB at this step. Not us. Maybe because we’re not selling a car, but a motorbike?
Forth, we had to make tons of photocopies. Basically everything official had to be photocopied, at 1RMB per sheet. A major scam. Passports, resident slips, the car registration book, etc. Everything.
Fifth, we filled out one of their stock contracts. This was the official sales contract between me, the seller, and Ionut, the Buyer. I suppose I could take this to court if Ionut didn’t pay (he did).
Sixth, we get a number and wait… only 2 minutes, and go to a window, give everything to the lady to process everything. At this point, I was expecting them to have an accessor look at my bike and declare an official value for the vehicle (so they could assess a 2.5% processing fee). I read this process step in a few online sites. But they didn’t. What they did do is look at the original sales receipt (fa piao) which had the accessed value from 5 years ago (I am surprised I still had this!!), and the amount paid for the sale (240 RMB or thereabouts). Then the computer did some magic and determined we had to pay 100 RMB for the transfer. Not too bad. It was here that we got the official change of ownership document. It is technically no longer my bike.
Seventh, So we go to another window, pay the 100 RMB, and get all our papers and documents back. We then go upstairs where they handle the reprinting of the registration booklets, issuance of new plates, etc. They don’t do motorbikes! So, we had to go to the Beijing Traffic Bureau HQ at South-East 4th Ring Road (where we would go for getting our Driver’s Licenses, plates, etc.) and get it taken care of then.
Eighth, we go to the Traffic Bureau HQ. We go to the foreigner office (lucky no line!) and are told we need more photo copies and we had to get the motorbike photographed.
Ninth, we go outside, drive the motorbike to the place to get it photographed (on the grounds of the Bureau). They wanted to charge 20 RMB to take the plates off, and another 20 RMB to have it photographed, but we opted to take the plates off ourselves. No choice about the fee for taking the photographs though. At this step, they also did an imprint of the VIN, or frame number. A photograph and this VIN number imprint were pasted on a slip and we went back to the foreigner office of the Bureau.
Tenth, they told us we needed to get a chop on this paper to make it “official”, so we had to go to the main hall of the building, have it looked at, and chopped. 5 minutes only.
Eleventh, back at the foreigner office of the Traffic Bureau, I handed over my old plates (tears) and registration booklet. We paid another fee (85 RMB or something), and 5 minutes later, the officer came back with new Yellow 京A plates. Yellow!!! Unfortunately, black plates, which I had, are no longer issued for foreigners. We aren’t special anymore. Oh well.
And there you have it. A simple, easy to follow 4+ hour procedure on how to transfer ownership of a motorcycle in Beijing! Now, that was easy!
Picture time. My pictures are on Flickr, but I have a selected few here:
Here is the official procedure on ownership transfer. Handwritten, of course.
My bike before the transfer.
Ionut and I shaking hands (a bit early on in the process).
The Vehicle Management hall. This is where it all happens (well, half of it).
The Beijing Traffic Bureau HQ.
My old plate.
Ionut’s new plate.
It’s no longer my bike, so I’m in the sidecar… riding as a passenger.
[ End of the day photo by Shasha Liu ]
I wrote a quick summary of yesterday’s party and chronicled many press hits the event got on the Internet. I’m still not finding many photos which I know were being taken. If you took photos or wrote about yesterday, please do comment on this post or email me.
I also wrote about the Laoban Soundsystem 1.0 July 1st Green Day IDEA2009 on my wiki previously if you’d like to chip in some links or comments. I really want to use the speakers, granted they aren’t the big Laoban 2.0 stack, for more events in Beijing! Also, I really must learn more about this brilliant Ableton live software. I’ve avoided it because its not free software, but now I think I’ve got it running in Wine. And, regardless, I must learn about this software if myself or anyone else wants to make something similar for live audio/video performances in the same caliber, but as Free Software (and better!).
If you want a great analysis and take on the Chinese Green Dam Saga, please read Andrew Lih’s post and the other great ones by Rebecca MacKinnon.
2009-07-01
Well I have to install tomcat again for a client. I ran a bunch of massive tomcat farms for a client before and for the life of me I can’t find my self made documentation. The thing is, tomcat an java can be installed about, well, 10 billion different ways. And they all have problems and benefits with respect to support, upgrading and linking with other systems like apache.
Well my recipe was good. I just have to find it again. While no one forgets to ride a bike – my brain can’t keep all the tech stuff that is life as an IT pro current and in the level one cache of my cerebral cortex always. I need to push stuff out to swap now and then.
But to close up this lame virtual memory metaphor for my brain….. I have a serious page fault right now. 
This is pretty interesting. The US Air Force have a methodology to deal with online responses like comments. I like it how trolls and “ragers” require HQ be notified
I think it helps people not used to communicating online think about different sorts of negative feedback, and how it is important to engage with some, and possibly not with others. Also the “response considerations” were quite good too to encourage transparency and accountability in online communications.
Click on the image for the larger more readable version.
Just in time, Matt got some pretty new aluminum fronts cut in time for the big event today.
Now that the Green Dam Youth Escort has been delayed, we have a full on celebraton on our hands in CaoChangDi from now until midnight, on Wed, July 1, 2009.
2009-06-30
Spread the word! The Party Day is on tomorrow like no other in CaoChangDi! Get your boycott on.
[Link to the SVG file]
We will bring our Laoban 1.0 Soundsystem with its new shiny grillz tomorrow. To all DJs and musicians out there (especially good ones!), this is an open call to come on out and plug-in to the speakers. We need you to come out and make some sound, art, and have a big ole green day brainstorm. The whole day is free and open! The entire day is to boycott the Chinese Internet.
To all our Internets Massive! To all Twitteronians, Identicators, Free and Open Source, Creative Commons’d out people in Beijing, or those who just want to have fun, please come out tomorrow for the full day or even just part of it. Matt Hope, Jon Phillips (rejon), Robin, Phil Dunn and so many more will most definitely be on hand to mix, make some projects in realtime and collectively boycott the Internet.
Party Day — See You in Caochangdi
WEDNESDAY 2009 1 July 9:00 AM to 11:30 PM, all day beer and chatting.
Blog friends, food friends, all are welcome. There will be gifts.
Phone: 010-8456-4194
Email: xuesheng512@gmail.comAddress: Beijing, Chaoyang District, Airport Service Road, Caochangdi No. 258 FAKE Studios
Breakfast menu: soy milk, gruel, youtiao, dumplings, four types of pickled vegetables, fried eggs, ham, tea eggs, fruit platter
Lunch menu: cinnamon lotus root, village style fungus mushrooms, seafood hot and sour soup, marinated duck, oyster sauce beef, fried fresh vegetables, Yangzhou fried rice, fried noodles, seasonal fruit
Dinner menu: cucumber, fish and egg soup, barbecue chicken, fish steaks, gulao pork, hot and spicy tofu, black peppercorn beefsteak, fried dishes, assorted mushrooms, udon, lotus fried rice, seasonal fruit
Midnight snack menu: cabbage hearts, spicy dried tofu, peanuts, fried broad noodles, gruel, fried bread with dipping sauce, garlicky vegetables, season fruit, four types of pickled vegetables
Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snack. Coke, Sprite, Fanta, orange juice, plum juice, lemon tea, Tsingtao, all kinds of beverages.
Guests can hang out in the lobby our outside eating and doing whatever they feel like.
Thanks to our great friend Robin Peckham for the realtime translation of the original post by the Wizzler.
UPDATE: Chinese government has delayed the Green Dam! The party goes on though in more of a celebration-mode!
2009-06-29
I finally upgraded to 2.8 from 2.2. I have new sitemap generators in, my various social networks plugged in, my syndication (almost) fixed again now that feedburner is no longer blocked in China. Most of my widgets, jeromes keywords tags and the like came over OK. Just need to work on the fonts and colours and add in a few more front page and back end stuff. And I will be with the times.
Also put in the new header that I made along with the old one 3 years ago – but never used. Good spring clean!
2009-06-25
It collects particles in the air in #caochangdi
The Underground Space in Beijing
Is this a possible #laoban event space?
2009-06-24
So, for the first time in 6 years of living in Beijing, a friend from back home has visited! (Yes, Derek did visit Shanghai on a business trip 2 years ago and I went down to see him, but that doesn’t count! ;-) Jason braved the H1N1 Swine Flu control measures, his temperature was checked some 3 times before getting out of the airport, to visit me (well, he came to see Beijing, but I’m here, so I take that as he’s here to see me! 
Another first for me yesterday was we went to see an Acrobatics show. In 6+ years of living here, I never went to see an Acrobatics show! Here are some pics!
Well, today is my last exam at school. It’s 口语, or speaking exam. It’s only about ten minutes of speaking to my teacher. I did well on the mid term, and aren’t too worried for this final. I should still be in the running to get about 50% or 75% of my tuition back on Friday through my school’s scholarship program. Weird, they just give you cash on the spot at the commencement “ceremony”. I think other schools give you scholarships towards the following term.
Things are winding down here. Jason leaves on the 30th of June, the movers come on the 1st of July to pack up the apartment. Then I’m off on the 7th! That’s only 13 days from here. Yikes!
2009-06-17
2009-06-16
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"Social innovation: an Australian priority: We know how to innovate in science and we have an idea about how to do industrial R&D". Looks interesting.
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"GovLoop is the premier social network connecting the government community." Very interesting project. Looks US centric but already had over 120 Aussies on it (and ppl all around the world). Worth checking out.
So,
Just found out the address of my new location, it just took me 6 Month, but here it is:
东城区草圆湖同８４号 (Dong cheng qu cao yuan hu tong 84 hao)
You can also have a look on the map, friendly sponsored my Schmap:
2009-06-12
mplayer tv:// -vo aa -monitorpixelaspect 0.5
Have fun!
Fabricatorz is getting a lot more love than REJON.org right now. Check out the naked Laoban Soundsystem 2.0 without the grills. Just a little more sponsorship will land this in Beijing. Read more…
2009-06-08
The bonfire was great fun, and although there were a lot of pikers (sickness, bad weather concerns, wusses) we had a lovely group of friends come out to enjoy the bushland and the explosions Below are the links to the photos I know of. I’ll add more as they come in:
Favourites:
One of my favourite photos is here, by Jenny, but I can’t insert it for some reason.
Mike Carden - fires and moon
Mary's photo of Po
Ghostly gums by Alison
Sparkly Alice by Alison
Lovely fire photo by Nathanael
2009-06-07
I meant to blog about this, but have been busy. I’m speaking at the SoGikII conference on Tuesday, which is an incredibly eccentric geek conference that should be awesome! Anyway, check it out
GikII noobs be warned: this is a conference with the boring bits left out, and the level of ‘geek’ cranked right up. (GikII, FWIW, is the tragic love-spawn of an Information Institute and a ligil geek.)
I’ll be speaking about being a geek in the political machine.
2009-06-06
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The last 10 years has seen a concerted effort globally to improve the relationship between governments and their citizens." Great speech by Lynelle Briggs, Public Service Commissioner relating to Gov 2.0.
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"The Power of Information Taskforce was established by Cabinet Office Minister Tom Watson MP in March 2008." Very interesting stuff!
2009-06-03
The most complete article I’ve seen recounting LGM2009 comes from Nathan Willis’ great reporting.
Here is the motherload of reviews and notes about LGM2009 from the LGM website:
- Alexander Prokoudine (Magic glue between developers):
- Cédric Gémy (Création Libre):
- Jon Phillips (Rejon):
- Creating in the Cloud Presentation at Libre Graphics Meeting 2009 and the related presentation,
- More Reviews and The Ultra Wide Views Exhibition at Libre Graphics Meeting 2009
- Open Source Publishing:
- Nathan Willis:
- Yuval Levy:
One of the gems Nathan Willis also covered in a separate article, “Open Fonts at Libre Graphics Meeting 2009,” is the LGM2009 discussion around the Open Font Library, the larger Open Font movement, and what is surely to be quite important, web font linking. The basics are that up until this point, fonts on the Internet have been limited to literally 4-6 generic fonts. With the upcoming release of Firefox 3.5, this will change as fonts can be linked like many resources, downloaded and rendered.
Nathan’s article I’m not doing justice right now, so please go read up on his report about the importance of Open Fonts, and the upcoming relaunch of the Open Font Library in sync with the release of Firefox 3.5.
Kudelabs Office in Guangzhou
Recently I worked with my friend, artist and UC Berkeley Professor, Greg Niemeyer to install one of his Blackcloud sensors at Kudelabs in Guangzhou, China, a great software company cranking out web applications you will be hearing more about in the near future.
Blackcloud is a quite interesting project to create highly sensitive pollution sensors to be distributed around the world with the data collecting at blackcloud.org to make observations and games around the concept of pollution. Each Blackcloud sensor tracks:
… CO2, your VOC’s, your city light, your endless noise, your rising heat, your damp confines in places all around the world. I visualze the Indoor Air in beautiful graphs so you can see when and where you pollute. Maybe I can predict your pollution cycles, too.
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| From Drop Box |
Blackcloud Sensor at Kudelabs office in Guangzhou
The sensors are quite interesting little boxes I thought I might have had a hard time transporting into China. They have little LEDs on the outside which show the previously discussed measurements. The whole box uses power-over-ethernet and of course a net connection to send and receive pollution data.
Here is more info for the tech nerds, Greg wrote:
I built two sensors so far. Both have a two-PCB board design, a ATMega 168 processor, a DCS CO2 sensor, and an array of other parts. The blue version sends data to my server via SMS text messaging, and the red version sends data via TCP/IP. I built the sensors using Eagle PCB design software, and a local PCB manufacturing plant.
I took a bunch of pictures of the installation and Kudelabs at Flickr, which I’m having a terrible time accessing today in the Great Firewalled China.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonphillips/tags/kudelabs
To me its quite curious to collect pollution data in China. It is often rumored that even during the Olympics, pollution measurements in Beijing were done far outside of the city away from the major sources of pollutants. With the lowering prices of sensors and affordable access to the Internet, it is possible for many to do their own fact finding. Now, if only the Chinese Internet could be made more reliable…
NOTE: Kudelabs is a gracious sponsor of the Laoban Soundsystem 2.0 being manufactured in Guangzhou, China, right now! Check out the latest in-progress pictures.
2009-06-01
Singapore Panorama - Borrowed from Wikipedia
Well folks, my long stay, just over 6 years, in Beijing is coming to an end. It is time to finish this chapter in my life (and boy, has it been an interesting one), and begin a new one.
Melanie has accepted a position in Singapore, and like a dutiful “almost-spouse”, I will be tagging a long.
Timing? Most likely in July. I have classes to finish up here (ending end of June). I plan on traveling around China for around a month or so (at least a couple of weeks), and then I’m off.
Friends from the states who thought about visiting? You missed your chance! (except for Jason who’s coming at the end of June). You had 6 years…
2009-05-31
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"Did medieval women pick up weapons and fight? The answer is an unqualified yes." Nice article, talks about women in various cultures in the art of war and combat.
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Aussie site for community consultation by Government, used currently by largely local and state governments, and some good results! Nice work!
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Onlline public engagement in Canberra. Nice! "The Chief Minister wants to hear from you about how the ACT Government can improve the way it consults, and engages the ACT community."
Pitching, it’s the art of explaining something quickly and efficiently so that the listener buys into your idea. Asking your boss for time off at work? A client to buy more of a product or service? Your girlfriend to go watch Star Trek with you? You’re pitching.
The pitch people talk about most often in tech start-ups is the elevator pitch, which is a quick description of your company or product that should last less than the time it takes to ride an elevator — about half a minute.
Well, we have a product and I have an elevator pitch. It’s quick, it’s concise, and here it goes:
“So what do you do?”
“We have a product called NthCode Player, which is software home electronics companies can embed into televisions, set-top boxes, and other devices so that consumers can seamlessly find, stream, and play movies and music from their home networks and Internet services.”
“So … what do you do?”
Exactly. What do we do? No one understands. Here is a typical response:
“We are impressed, but we (I) just do not understand computer talk. So is this product for sale? I assume so. I hope you make big bucks!”
Okay, that’s not exactly typical, that’s a snippet of an email from my mother. If my mother — who other than being the greatest Mom on the planet is also a normal human being who sometimes reads my blog — says she doesn’t get it, then I have a problem.
And it wasn’t just Mom. It was also some of my geek friends. Pardon me, computer savvy professionals. I’d give them the elevator pitch, and, they, not wanting to look like idiots would try to understand it. “Oh, it’s kind of like X?” or “who are the customers?” and “what’s the business model?”
And it didn’t *feel* right in my gut. It was a bit of me thinking to myself, “Eh, that didn’t feel natural” and “what am I not saying right?”
So here are the symptoms of a bad pitch: People who should understand it are grasping to figure out what it is, it doesn’t feel right in your gut, and your Mom doesn’t get it.
What’s the solution: keep pitching, but keep changing it around — sooner or later, you’ll hit onto a way of pitching that works. That’s what I did, and now I have this:
“So what do you do?”
“It’s quite simple. All these television and set-top box companies are trying connect their devices to home networks and Internet services. We provide a software stack that does that.”
Ta-da!
And people get it.
Now I have a pitch I can build on.
2009-05-27
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"How great are the potential advantages of allowing the public greater freedom of use … relative to the potential harm associated with an increase in misquotations as a result of copyright licensing changes." Nice post by Liam about responses to Digital Economy submissions on copyright.
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Very interesting read, great work by Colin Jackson (misprinted as Colin Jacobs) in the article. That is all I'm going to say True colours…
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"This Article argues that we need a politics, or perhaps a political economy, of intellectual property." Interesting concepts, and great references!
Today was brilliant! The most fun day in my new job working for Senator Lundy! I have been a little lax in my blogging due to being so busy so I thought I’d share a (probably not typical) day in the life of a geek policy advisor
- Went with Kate to the “Sharing Data, Sharing Ideas” metadata conference for a couple of hours, where the people opening it spoke about the importance of metadata, and openness. I’ve been told all talk slides will be on that website after the conference and Kate will post her speech on her website probably tomorrow.
- Posted the draft briefing paper from the first Public Sphere topic on high speed bandwidth on the new wiki, and within 30 mins had the first contribution! I believe this is the first use of a wiki for public engagement by an Australian Parliamentarian, very exciting stuff!
- Met with some interesting folk to talk about virtual environments, discussed importance of open APIs and standards, and am considering eventually doing a Public Sphere in a fully virtual environment (easily months down the track!).
- Coordinated some material to go into the vodcasts we are doing, and helped another staffer at Kate’s office to look at how to use the website to garner online feedback on an important topic. She’ll likely be also engaging the Facebook community on the topic and it was very satisfying to have the staffer exclaim surprise and happiness that they could directly engage on the website with these newfangled tools
- Dropped down to the “Copyright Commons; Copyright Freedom” conference which featured amazing international speakers such as Lawrence Lessig (US) and Prodromos Tsiavos (UK, wrote a great paper called Cultivating Creative Commons: From Creative Regulation to Regulatory Commons), and awesome copyright guru Aussies such as David Vaile, Brian Fitzgerald, Prof Graham Greenleaf, Anne Fitzgerald and Jessica Coates. Recorded an amazing audio interview between Kate and Larry Lessig, which we’ll podcast tomorrow, but I was particularly pleased with their responses to “what is the link between copyright freedom and open government”. They mostly just chatted and shared ideas, which makes it pretty cool listening (I think anyway ). Kate gave a fantastic speech which she’ll also post tomorrow. Larry recognised me from a conference I met him at many years ago in Brazil, which was impressive (as he was totally jet lagged that day).
- As part of going to the copyright conference, had my first visit to Old Parliament House, a beautiful building and definitely worth visiting.
- Was invited to speak at an eclectic event for geeks to share fringe geek interests and talks, and I’ll likely talk on “being a geek in Parliament House”. Will post more information once I have it.
- Was chatting to Liam Wyatt from Wikimedia Australia about the upcoming GLAM-WIKI seminar (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums & Wikimedia). The idea is “a two-way dialogue to determine how to use the two communities’ strengths to a mutual advantage”, should be really interesting!
So although it has been a 15 hour day (who says public servants don’t do long hours!) it has been amazing. I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of this “policy advisor” thing, and one of my main initial goals of being a conduit to the community and industry is working out nicely with the public spheres and some other projects we are working on
As David Vaile so eloquently put today, I’m as happy as a pig in mud, and energised enough to be up and blogging at 4am, time to go sleep…
The Ultra Wide Views Exhibition at Libre Graphics Meeting 2009 from Yuval Levy on Vimeo.
The making of the first Ultra Wide Views Exhibition for Libre Graphics Meeting 2009 in Montréal, Canada. High resolution large format giclées; a high resolution 360° panoramic display projecting still images, 3D (anaglyph) panorama and movies with ambiophonic sound; an experimental projectors array.
Thanks to Yuval on this cool “making of video.” I really had some good talks with Yuval about making LGM2010 more sustainable and more focused on content rather than just tools, aka bikeshed making. He read over my review, and now please check out his much more complete review of LGM2009, including his todo for 2010:
To do for LGM2010
- Decide on the venue ASAP. This is the single most important issue on the critical path to leading to LGM2010. The discussion on the mailing list seems to have fade out?
- Reach out to the general public! Ginger Coons suggested tupperware parties? Let’s show schoolkids that they need not pirate software to be creative. Let’s share our creations with the general public. Let’s get the media buzz going. Concentrate a few speeches geared at the general public on the Saturday. Make the exhibition last longer than the conference, with the conference being its culminating point. Entice the general public to learn about free graphics.
- Keep the buzz going – my feeling is that there is not enough going on in between conferences. I’d like to see more activity on the mailing list. We need more fund raising in these difficult times.
2009-05-26
The meeting was about what we’re doing at Beijing LUG, all our BLUG Groups, the Gdium, the Loongson chip, OLPH and the plans for Software Freedom Day 2009. We finished discussions at about 1am and could have talked a lot more. It was a really nice to see so much enthusiasm, diversity and passion at Qingdao LUG. This is definitely a great group to visit and I encourage anyone thinking to go to Qingdao to drop an email on their mailing list and try to arrange something. A big thank you goes to Eson who has been starting and keeping the group together for now 2 years as well as Alex for their support. For people interested, Qingdao LUG meets every second Friday of the month at SPR Coffee shop on 54 Square.
2009-05-25
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Really interesting presentation given by Stephen Collins in NZ at the GOVIS conference. Great references to Gov 2.0 stuff happening in US, NZ and Australia.
I hope you will all take some time to look at the photos I recently posted over at my Flickr account (BTW, why isn’t there a Free Network Service like Flickr yet?). Here is a quick sampling of some CaoChangDi delights, Guangzhou insanity, and more. (Oh, and note that the Wikipedia article for Caochangdi didn’t exist until I wrote the words CaoChangDi here on this blog. This helps to explain why I like living in China right now. Massive possibilties for contributions.) Enjoy! Oh, and hover over the images with your mouse to see the title of the images.
“Don’t check your email in the bathroom self-portrait.” (above)
The above two images are from a developing project I’m calling the Panyu Platform. See the whole set to get a picture of the raw space.
The rest of the images are from CaoChangDi, aka, the #CCD
By the way, all images above taken with my Android Google Phone. I still refuse to buy a camera other than the one on my phone 
2009-05-23
I’m not blogging as much as usual, and will try to get back onto regular posts but have been so busy! Have some great posts coming about life and work in Parliament House 
Today was out at the “farm” (the cute name for the 170 acres of untouched Australian bush that belongs to my parents). Anyway, some lovely photos are below. Po had a great time and was very tired by the end of the day, even though he wasn’t the one making bonfires!
2009-05-22
2009-05-21
Being part of the GNOME.Asia Summit Committee, I would like to pass along the message and let every Asian community know that we’re looking for a new host this year. So here is the full announcement:We are soliciting proposals for hosting GNOME.Asia 2009. The GNOME.Asia Summit is planned to be an annual GNOME event hosted in Asia. We started the GNOME.Asia Summit in 2008 and we want to continue this tradition and spread GNOME throughout the Asian region.
The GNOME.Asia Summit will focus primarily on the GNOME desktop including both applications and the development platform in addition to larger GNOME-related community in Asia. The Summit brings together the GNOME community in Asia to provide a forum for users, developers, foundation leaders, governments and businesses to discuss a varied range of topics relating to GNOME and the GNOME community in Asia. Learn more about GNOME.Asia Summit from our website at http://www.gnome.asia/en/
The Summit has an active committee to assist the local coordinators, but there is a definitive need for individuals actively involved and committed to the planning and execution of the Summit. There are challenges to work through but the process can be a very rewarding and a lot of fun.
GNOME.Asia is much like a tiny seed we want to grow into a tree in Asia. We are looking for local organizers in any Asian country with the desire to take on and succeed in the challenges of organizing an excellent GNOME event.
The following two links are “must read items” for GUADEC, the European model for the Summit. It has also worked well for GNOME.Asia Summit organizers :
- How to: http://live.gnome.org/GuadecPlanningHowTo?highlight=(guadec)|(howto)
- Check list: http://live.gnome.org/GuadecPlanningHowTo/CheckList
You will also find the template of GNOME.Asia Summit 2008 Proposal is very helpful:
Download the proposal template from: http://www.gnome.asia/static/upload/document/GNOME_Asia_Summit_proposal.pdfDear GNOME friends,
For those of you who interested in hosting the next GNOME.Asia Summit in 2009 you are hereby invited to write a formal proposal to the GNOME.Asia Committee list at asia-summit-list [at] gnome.org regarding your ideas for this year Asian GNOME event! The deadline for submitting the proposal is 15th, June, 2009.
2009-05-20
2009-05-18
Dave Crossland at LGM2009 in Montreal. More photos coming soon Alexandre says!
LGM2009 went quite well! I met some very interesting people and generally had a feeling of excitement while there. I initially felt as if our open source graphics community had entered a period of tool and bike shed making. Thus, I sounded the cry: what is the priority for Libre Graphics Meeting now, more specifically for each of our projects, and for the overall community? Are we just making tools and creating more and more features, — better shovels, hammers and chainsaws — or do we have a collective strategy which is measurable from year to year. And, what about the content or quality of art vs. just graphics, being produced with our applications?
One cool guy I met is Kaveh, whose company handles three major scientific publishing companies through his company in India. This guy really represents what I’m interested in in FLOSS now, which is self-sustaining projects along the lines of the great work Ton and Blender Community has done. How can we all learn from the world of business to power our fun open source projects?
All throughout the conference, Kaveh made professional recordings of the presentations that synced the video and slides of presenters and immediately posted them to one of his company websites, River Valley.
Here is my list of top three favorite outcomes from LGM2009:
- Participation by Companies built on Open Source (River-Valley and AscenderCorp), and OSP
- Jeff Fortin’s PiTiVi Video Editor Presentation (This project is growing now! Great! We need a great Open Source Video Editor!)
- Michael Terry’s Presentations on In-Gimp and Adaptive UI’s and his Lightning Talk about Kinetic Templates
Here is what I hope for LGM2010:
- Each Project to have 3 Solid Priorities BEFORE LGM2010
- Collaborative Project Focused On Content, and NOT Tool Building. I have great hope that if OSP leads this and we do LGM2010 in Brussels, then we will have a great content-based outcome, which will power development on tools.
- Involve more Artists and Academics
I’m excited to hear from others about their thoughts about LGM2009, what worked, what didn’t, and what to do for LGM2010. What did you take away and/or add to LGM2009?
Go check out
老板 赞助级别 (Laoban Soundsystem 2.0 Sponsorship in Chinese)
Thanks to Shasha Liu and Lu Jia, here are Chinese translations of the Laoban Soundsystem 2.0 Sponsorship blog post and main PDF.
Laoban Soundsystem 2.0 Infodoc Chinese Laoban Soundsystem 2.0 Infodoc Chinese Jon Phillips This is the Chinese translation of this document. Laoban Soundsystem is an open sound system. The plans for all speakers are available on-line. The events the soundsystem participates in are media events that generate further media. Anyone who attends the events, creates the speakers, or produces content for them, please tag your work with laoban. The Laoban Soundsystem events are a new type of media event where all are welcome to join, bring media, laptops, video players, cameras, and other recording devices. The goal is to mix media, explore what artists, DJs, musicians, designers, and architects are working on RIGHT NOW — successes, failures, and rough edges are welcome at Laoban events! The ultimate plan is for consumers to be producers by both mixing media, and by tagging any recordings they have with “laoban” when posting onto twitter.com, flickr.com, or other places.
Hash: SHA256
Monday, 18 May 2009 12:10:43 +0800
For a number of reasons, i've recently set up a new OpenPGP key, and
will be transitioning away from my old one.
The old key will continue to be valid for some time, but i prefer all
future correspondence to come to the new one. I would also like this
new key to be re-integrated into the web of trust. This message is
signed by both keys to certify the transition.
the old key was:
pub 1024D/136266DC 2005-11-09
Key fingerprint = DAFA 3A26 64D4 530B 3B85 9096 26B8 432C 1362 66DC
And the new key is:
pub 2048R/A0291198 2009-05-18
Key fingerprint = 26FF 407A 0EFF 1004 92A3 28DE 077A 0E7B A029 1198
To fetch my new key from a public key server, you can simply do:
gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-key A0291198
If you already know my old key, you can now verify that the new key is
signed by the old one:
gpg --check-sigs A0291198
If you don't already know my old key, or you just want to be double
extra paranoid, you can check the fingerprint against the one above:
gpg --fingerprint A0291198
If you are satisfied that you've got the right key, and the UIDs match
what you expect, I'd appreciate it if you would sign my key:
gpg --sign-key A0291198
Lastly, if you could upload these signatures, i would appreciate it.
You can either send me an e-mail with the new signatures (if you have
a functional MTA on your system):
gpg --armor --export A0291198 | mail -s 'OpenPGP Signatures' zhengpeng.hou@gmail.com
Or you can just upload the signatures to a public keyserver directly:
gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --send-key A0291198
Please let me know if there is any trouble, and sorry for the
inconvenience.
Regards,
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJKEOE3AAoJEAd6DnugKRGYuiAIALW5TNIvWVVIR7rqdRxQxnFp
ZmAvGx7vxDUOhAQ3Zv8FfE0I5f/ooepObiwbvD8RNUfR5ATOIvV4M40P3+SVxTQw
RB3bgzRZYVlE4xbbcPWLxeGIWLJzAxDlS8xt/UTxJkZQomh9hQKHUdtskVn0rNtA
YRrXO92LovspXTf6I7Z61fX//txJMKVg1X1SFxRnqSxwaVDig3VjLaVJ/bQLb1LU
vOrnX7LE9CX0YGUN/24u3GxfvgB1dHKn5rhzg0/ZhIOJ4UTbxjyG+mGkyJzr2ptg
h3kAAa2QGXVnbT5mnHU54U6uVYDgcR2KTHZ+9PFk/ves4QF3cvuPST9f8LeN3PQ=
=Z9e+
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
2009-05-17
I have a webcam I tried to use, and all it does is make video art. There is no complicated ideas behind this. It is kind of pretty, but possibly reflective of some processes right now.
2009-05-14
Looks like home depot has some extra inventory.
2009-05-13
Outside of Dexxon China office this evening…
2009-05-11
I was talking with the other expat tech in the office today and thought to myself, “Who is the domain registrar for google?” Thinking to myself it is probably network solutions (the ONLY place BTW to register .cn domain names if you want even a modicum of control over them).
Well I fired up a new tab in my always open terminal and hilarity ensued. I could not work it out. I thought at first that maybe this text response that I got was to stop the registrar being hassled with google problems.
No.
Turns out that the OSX whois command likes to do a bit of regular expression matching on my behalf.
Try it yourself….
Terminal > Whois google.com > Enter > Laugh
2009-05-07
I just gave my latest presentation, I talked about previously: Creating in the Cloud and Other Tales of Design Realidad. I made this presentation as a rallying cry that all of us in the FLOSS Creative Application Space need to step up our game in get more in the Autonomo.us Free Network Service movement and make some good online services, and just possibly make some money while at it, in a good (aka, non-evil) way.
Here’s the presentation I created all in Google Docs. I literally could not get OpenOffice.org (OO.o) to run on my computer when prepping this presentation, so I nuked using OO.o. I can’t stand it anymore. It is literally the last piece of software I used on my desktop. Now, I will only use web-based applications.
Here is the presentation on Scribd and Slideshare versions.
Please make some comments. I challenged people with 3 TODOs to take this discussion into action:
- Survey what creative applications are needed to create: http://create.freedesktop.org/wiki/Wishlist
- Connect with Autonomo.us
- Get Hacking! Funding! Go! Go! Go!
Creating in the Cloud and Other Tales of Design Realidad
The trend towards web-based applications creates a question about the future of creativity on the web. With web projects like Aviary, Scribd and Slideshare, more people than ever have access to making and sharing creations. How do our beloved desktop applications such as Inkscape, Gimp, Scribus, Krita, and Blender fit into this new world wide web world order (NWWWWO)? How do our projects stay relevant in contemporary times as more users and technology move to use network services? How may we learn from the rapid development of web-based projects that don’t rely upon the ultra-long development cycles, arduous community learning curves and reliance upon cranky ingrained software development methodologies?
First, this presentation surveys the landscape of creative network services such as Aviary, DeviantArt, Scribd, and Docstoc. Then it investigates the the Free and Open Source Software (FLOSS) approach to on-line network services, Autonomo.us Free Network Services most commonly licensed with the GNU Affero GPL 3.0 software license. The Open Clip Art Library and Open Font Library communities are used as examples of pre-Free Network Services websites which can fit into the Autonomo.us Free Network Services definition.
This presentation is a call to arms for all FLOSS Graphics communities to think about how their applications integrate with the web, what pieces are missing, and how we can all collaborate on making a unlocked web-based graphics future.
And, here is the original Autonomou.us presentation I gave at Gnome.Asia which I realized I totally forgot to put online.
2009-05-01
I decided that every time I’m doing something in my work for Senator Kate Lundy that I think is of interest to the FOSS community, my family, and many other readers of this blog, I’ll repost it here I’ll tag any such posts with “katelundy” to make it easier to pick them.
So the most recent project (which I’m really excited about!) is the launch of a new initiative called “Public Spheres”. The idea is based on the definition of a Public Sphere as a space that:
“…through the vehicle of public opinion it puts the state in touch with the needs of society” [1]
Our goal is to effectively create an accessible and effective way to collate perspectives, opportunities, concerns and other feedback on topical issues of the day, and we are copying the process that was used at the recent AdTech conference. Basically you stream talks and have all feedback, questions and such happening online. This way both local and remote participants in the event can engage fully in the process.
Anyway, our first topic is around the opportunities and impact of high speed bandwidth in Australia, and already we’ve had proposed talks around Green ICT, media, delivery of government services, telecommuting, agricultural and environmental information, emergency services and more! So if you have something you’d like to talk about, check out on the website whether someone else is already covering your topic, and volunteer yourself for a 10 minute speech for the day. You can either present it in person, or pre-record it for the event.
Full details are at http://www.katelundy.com.au/category/publicsphere/
[1] Habermas, Jürgen (German(1962 - English Translation 1989), p 31. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Categoryof Bourgeois Society. Cambridge Massachusetts: The MIT Press. p. 30. ISBN 0-262-58108-6. UPDATE: The conference that used Twitter that was mentioned to me was AdTech, not ATUG as originally posted, apologies for the confusion!2009-04-30
Come out tomorrow afternoon and evening, Friday, May 1 at CCD300 for a last minute event tomorrow in Cao Chang Di for the Qianti 2009 Performance Art Festival. Matt and I are setting up the upgraded Laoban Soundsystem 1.0 and will use the new Xiaoban Baby Speaker Samples we have in the stack for the event to start at 2 PM on May Day (May 1) and will last for a few hours. If you are hardcore, come out from the start. My guess is the best time to come after the performance art is at 5:30 PM and we will keep the bass and dubstep going for as long as people are on the scene. There is cheap drinks and food all around the space, so all is well on that front.
UPDATE: Ok, confirmed details. There are performances and a couple of bands from 2 - 6. Then after 6 PM, the big party starts and goes until late. There is free bbq and beers the entire day from 2 until whenever…so this is really about who comes out now, and who is mixing.
We will be mixing some drum n bass, dubstep, dirty south beats, and getting some friends to mix as well, all around the theme of planning for summer events like Laoban Tour, CaoChangDi.org, and other projects in anticipation of Laoban Soundsystem 2.0 arriving soon.
DJS: If you are a DJ, please come out and mix some cutting edge music. Its all about the battle of best music on an open soundsystem.
Here is a map to the space on Google Maps in China. If you get lost or something, or want to know what is happening, you can text or call me (Jon Phillips) at: 132-6817-8381
Head over to the Fabricatorz Blog Post for more details.
Complete in a nasty wooden crate straight to the rmbcity offices for the first set of laoban speakers matt had made, for last minute event tomorrow.
2009-04-27
Switching from electricity to candles for an hour is quite debatable from a pure environmental point of view (candles are much less efficient than bulbs!) and it might also give a wrong message: "Switch off the lights for one hour and forget about environment until next year"! I found this great article from The Australian that sums it up well. What stated there is so true: "Unfortunately, this event - as with many public proposals on climate change - is an entirely symbolic gesture that creates the mistaken impression that there are easy, quick fixes to climate change."Earth Day is a bit better as the message tends to be less simplistic, but still: it is quite easy to change your way of life for a single day. You can wait one day to wash your clothes, you can work one day from home to avoid using cab, you can make the extra effort to close the tap while brushing your teeth on that day... but would you be able to keep it up longer?
We have to change our way of life on the long term to really reduce our impact on the environment. So what about creating an Earth Week? It could be great fun and really have a positive impact.
We could have something like:
- You choose one area where you think you could easily reduce your impact on environment for example transportation or electricity consumption or water consumption.
- For two weeks before the Earth Week, you monitor your usage on this area (eg check the electricity or water meters or collect your taxi/gas bills) to know how much you really use.
- You commit on a change you are willing to make (eg: cutting your cab/car usage by half, lower your water consumption by 20%).
- During Earth Week you stick to this commitment.
- At the end of the week, you can decide to stick to this commitment for the rest of the year!
I would love to do that. What about you?
My life got pretty crazy around the end of last year and I couldn't find much time to scramble eggs for the customers at The Downtown Diner.
Plus, to be honest, I was censoring myself pretty heavily since this blog is corporate-sponsored. You guys weren't getting full-on me, you were getting a filtered version of me. I always asked myself the question, "Will I be representing Sun well if I write this? What kind of picture am I painting of a Sun manager with this?"
Basically I wanted to make grilled cheese sandwiches but I felt compelled to use whole wheat bread and Brie when really, doesn't a grilled cheese sandwich taste better when it's Wonder Bread and American cheese?
So anyway I created a private blog where I can serve up whatever blue plate specials I want - http://thedowntowndiner.blogspot.com . Feel free to drop by there.
It's a new branch but the waitress will still recognize you.
Just to let you know, I'll be speaking tonight at a panel organized at the Cheung Kong GSB in Beijing. The topic of the panel is:"Net Capitalists : Making Money Online - A Panel Discussion
Three Beijing-based professionals talk about their entrepreneurial
experiences using the web to make profit and give you tips on starting
out on your own commercial online adventure."
The panel is part of the Cheung Kong Open Lecture Series. It starts at 7pm, in Oriental Plaza E3, 12th floor (subway Dongdan on line 1 and line 5). Free.
2009-04-26
Over the past two weeks I’ve redone and consolidated the 3 existing websites into Senator Kate Lundy’s new website. I’ve been really impressed to be reading through her historical posts, podcasts, blogs, speeches, and the efforts she’s made (often enough on her own) with technologies such as Joomla, Frontpage, Audacity, Twitter and more. We’ve already imported over 400 articles!
Anyway, the new site is up, there are still some tweaks we are doing, and there are still a few media releases we are importing (manually) from her old Frontpage website (argh!!!!) but it’d be great to get people’s perspectives and feedback.
One thing it would be good to know is what do people what to know about? How could we - through her online presence - help make Australian Government processes more transparent? What are some good examples from overseas? Links, stories and ideas welcome!
Libre Graphics Meeting 2009 is the largest gathering of free and open source graphics software developers and users. It is super crucial that an annual meeting happens where all of us, normally spread around the world, can meet, discuss the future of our projects, and collaborate to make software that countless people freely use.
You know our applications, GIMP, Inkscape, Blender, Krita, Scribus, Hugin, the Open Clipart Library, and the Open Font Library. All of these applications are necessary for your daily creative use. Where many studios pay $1000 USD plus just for Photoshop annually, each of the above applications is completely free to use FOREVER. However, it is not free for us all to use our own resources to develop applications for the world. It is not free for us to fly to LGM 2009, for accommodations, and food for 4 days in Montreal.
We need your help right now in three ways:
1. Contribute Money to complete our community fundraising campaign: We’ve raised $5,804.50, but still need $9,195.50! That is 161 supporters all saying they care about LGM. We still are trying to get $9,195.00 more in support. This is directly to support and reimburse travel for the developers to attend this conference in Montreal. We need your help!
2. Corporate Support: We still need corporations as sponsors for the conference. We are about to make a press push and will include companies who have contributed to this. This money yet again, will be used for developer travel and for some of the conference costs we have incurred and will incur. We want to properly disseminate news about our activities as well with this fundage.
3. Call for Participation: We are still accepting talks, believe it or not! Please submit your talks now!
We extremely appreciate all who have helped make this Libre Graphics Meeting 2009 possible. Without all YOUR support, we would still make our projects, but much slower and without your valuable input!
Please help us by blogging about this final push right now, tell your story about how you use free and open source graphics programs and help make a support ask so we can put this conference on to the best of our abilities.
2009-04-24
Overlap.org is doing many many projects and events right now. I just helped with a press launch.
Here are the main highlights!
1. Overlap.org releases Nakamura Hiroyuki “TRITONOMICS”
3. Overlap and swissnex + YOU collaborate at QB1 robot unveiling - April 24th 2009
2009-04-17
I’m in Guangzhou today visiting the speaker factory to see the great work being done on Laoban 2.0. You’d be amazed at all the decisions needed to make the system real.
Needless to say, the factory has over 50 years experience making soundsystems. Ours is just more custom than normal. We still need sponsors, so please contact us!
I’d rather have this house and peace of mind, than live a lie as a sidecar. I’d rather be more #cantocore by action than bloodline. I’d rather be most honest rather than lie to everyone around me.
Guangzhou still is my favorite city on the planet and I have great friends and family here regardless of personal outcomes.
Do you want to come to guangzhou or curious my discussion?
Well I was wrong, our female phesulma did actually lay eggs since she was given to us by the Beijing Zoo (actually they gave both a male and a female), but we carefully took care of her first clutch (2 eggs each time,
Seems nature has decided otherwise and that leaving the eggs in the terrarium itself (Pockey now knows why they do hide their eggs 
) and not bothering about it was a much more successful way to get baby phelsumas. So welcome into our world little guy (or girl), and we’ll do our best to give you a happy life!
2009-04-16
桃园学校项目介绍 － http://www.ygclub.org/bbs/thread-1645-1-1.html
大导演加菲猫给志愿者白雷的音乐《阳光》配上了小乡07年拍的桃园学校的照片，花了两天时间做成了视频。
效果还不错，当作阳光的宣传片了！欢迎大家加入我们的活动！:)
Today I bought a Virgin 3G USB dongle for internet access while on the road, and I thought I’d share the experience. It turns out I don’t need to write up the documentation because it mostly works out of the box, and the little bits I need to change are already well documented
First I looked at the Ubuntu 3G Hardware page to see what the best supported cards were. We already have our mobiles on Virgin, so I was pleased to see the default Virgin mobile Broadband device was supported, the Huawei E169.
When I plugged it in, I then created a new mobile broadband connection through the network manager. If I used all the defaults, and then selected the connection through Network Manager, it would ask for a password and fail.
So I followed the excellent instructions from the Ubuntu forums here to both disable chap from the /etc/ppp/options and edit my network managed mobile broadband connection with a few settings (the Virgin Broadband number and password, plus the changing of the name from the default VirginInternet to VirginBroadband) and within minutes it is working perfectly!
This configuration is on an EEEPC 1000H running Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04) which is currently in beta, but looks great.
2009-04-15
The Webstandards China slides are pretty basic, and the presentation mostly I did to see who is interested and to get some criticism, which I did.
In the end, after some great conversation, I’m not convinced this is a high priority project right now (at least for my time output). It is possible that a large company taking this on directly, and influencing with success might be better. The way guanxi works in China right now is interesting, and must be understood to take on some type of advocacy effort. Thus, I think a bit more discussion and review is in order to make this into something fabulous (or not).
2009-04-13
My project company Fabricatorz is seeking fundage for the Laoban Sound System 2.0. Help build it, and get something back!
We are seeking sponsorships for the Laoban Soundsystem 2.0 being built in Guangzhou, China right now. It is to be used all summer in China for events. It is a custom engineered Chinese sound system, a research project, and a vehicle to connect sponsors with a large web-based and live audience connected to music, art, media, china, and web culture. Every time the system is used will be a media event, generating massive traffic and attention to the project and sponsors.
We are seeking sponsors in Da (large, $1000), Zhong (medium, $500), and Xiao (small, $250) increments to our goal of $8,000 to build this complete sound system in time for summer.
Da Sponsor (large, $1000)
- Logo/Image + web link to website
- Will receive pair Xiaoban Small DJ/Desktop Speakers from first production run of limited edition 88 speakers
- Announced in all press as a sponsor
- Invited to Special Events
Zhong Sponsor (medium, $500)
- Logo/Image + web link to website
- Announced in all press as a sponsor
- Invited to Special Events
Xiao Sponsor (small, $250)
- Logo/Image + web link to website on sponsors page
- Announced in group announcement
To start off this sponsorship push, Kude Labs and Fabricatorz have both sponsored the initial monies to begin fabrication on the Laoban Sound System. More than just sponsoring the development of the soundsystem, by contributing to the project, you will increase your connection to China media, art, culture and youth, as well as page views to the world’s largest population of Internet users.
Contact us to be a sponsor and lets get this built!
