20 Jun 2004
Hmm. I just printed out cover pages, two drafts, the final copy, and a compositional reflection thingamajig, and it came to 22 pages total.
Doo bee doo.
So much for 1000 words… *cough*.
Yes, of course my final limit is within the 1100 mark!! I wouldn’t dream of violating that! I wouldn’t be so irresponsible as to write 1500ish words even on the final edit.
I shall say no more. ;)
The final copy shall be posted online after I return home tomorrow afternoon, as without a doubt, there will be many people still working on it tonight and tomorrow morning, and making their life easier would be boring. Or something. Plagurism sucks, hehe.
I suppose they *did* ask it be double spaced, so that unneccessarily contributed some significant bloat to the final document, but still… 22 pages for ~1500 words seems ridiculous. Meh!
18 Jun 2004
This has been bugging me for a few days. I think I’ll redesign the way news is ordered on this website – I’ve been knowing that this post will be the first one on the next page of news – so I’ve been hesitating posting until I decided I had something worth saying. Which would be a long time, so… I’ve gotten over the hurdle, and just thought “screw it”.
Probable recode of the ordering of news sometime in the near future (perma-links will remain unaffected as a design criteria, naturally), so that is something for me to look forward to. And perhaps the other three visitors to this website…
Soooo. Year 11 Political Theatre was tonight. That’d make a convenient scapegoat for a lack of posts over the past few days, so I’ll use it ;). It hasn’t really chewed that much time, but if it works, don’t knock it… Technically, the show was pretty amateurish. Hmm. Don’t try and make smart remarks about that word, or I shall request the army of zombies be unleashed upon you. Or Nikky and the book “The Future of Killing in Our Schools”. One of the above. It was more… challenging in terms of content than last years (perhaps that is a personal thing, I don’t know – no human is objective, naturally), although perhaps less humorous. By that I mean there were no random cries of “SANG CHOY BOW!!” in the middle of the show. Heh.
Okay, I think the humour was several notches above last years. But it wasn’t just about humour, fortunately – because that would be boring. It was challenging, engaging and, whilst some bits of it were fairly poor (I could name acts and/or people, but won’t ;)), others were immensely powerful. Both the first class and their movement piece (lost in a world in which technology surrounds and overpowers human interaction, where people move systematically and uncaringly, ignoring the presence of a confused and lonely person, who, overwhelmed by her surroundings, screams, collapses to the ground, and then joins in the mindless, repetitious movement of the whole cast in a form of mechanical existence), and the second with their haunting crippled army (a people struck and afflicted by the society in which they live, portrayed by the use of crutches and intense, heavy music complete with strobe, whilst images of September 11 are projected onto a screen behind the actors), score fairly highly so far as I am concerned.
Especially the second class. Technically it requires more (to good effect, I would say), but I think the use of featureless masks and equipping the entire cast with crutches was the most powerful aspect of the entire night. We (technical) didn’t do a great job with it (e.g. it could have been way better), but that was still easily the highlight of my night.
There were, of course, a whole range of other acts. Beatboxing from the guy who got into SACS Idol, didn’t come, and still managed to rank 5th on the voting system (someone didn’t tell us he wasn’t going to be there, so the record was still in the database when the application was deployed… malicious audiences suck!), and a few other interesting scenes… good, but those two major scenes outdid everything else.
Compared to last year? Possibly not as humourous. Although, that said, the styles and content of the two were so completely different, it depends very much on the audience. I’ll say this much, though – the beer hats stayed in the props cupboard this year.
15 Jun 2004
Well, for the first time ever, I left a session open too long, and it ate my cookie. WHO STOLE THE COOKIE FROM THE COOKIE JAR?!?!!?
I want my cookie back :( It’s kind of funny. I type up stuff, and give up caring as soon as I type it. I don’t really think that this is a great outlet, because I’m careful about what I type (publicly accessible websites are a little like that), but trying to make myself type what I’d lost requires concious effort. More a reflection of my laziness than anything else, perhaps? Ah well.
I’m combatting my laziness for a bit.
Three assessments happened today, most of which I was happy with. Well, all of which I was happy with, at an individual level. English, Business and a Cisco final exam.
English? It was a group performance task, and we all performed pretty well, and had prepared… enough. But the plot was somewhat lost in the space between our scripts and the audience. Or so I think… Tori would have me believe otherwise, but hey. I think we’ll do okay, so no major gripes there.
I’m not so happy about that assessment in general, though, due to the content of a certain other performance. At risk of making it worse, I won’t elaborate here. Bullying, or at least defamation, which of course passed undetected by the teacher for various reasons. Somewhat angry about that one, in fact. I’ll stop talking now.
Business was a report on Sydney Tower Restaurants, which I had done very little preparation for (save a quick Google the night before), for various reasons – I bothered to write a report scaffold on the bus on my way in to school this morning, though, which was mildly invaluable. I’m happy with the assessment, although I didn’t get time to finish completely. I used two booklets, and the last two pages are scrawled dot-point notes, because I realised I had a little too much to cover with five minutes to go ;)
The Cisco Semester 1 Final Exam, I managed to scrape in with a beautiful 73.9 – a pass is 70 – which was immensely cool. I was meant to sit that one last Friday, but due to “preparing for English” (meaning, that is what I was doing, but it was highly unproductive… had fun drawing dyslexic flutterbyes, though) I didn’t. Which, in retrospect, is almost definitely a Good Thing™ – I sat it this afternoon in the company of Year 12, who are infinitely more quiet than the year 11 cohort ever are ;) Hehe, the funny thing is, they thought they were making too much noise. You guys rock.
As promised to various people, my english script:
English script
Costume: School uniforms
Setting: SACS classroom
Time of day: Normal school times
Props + aids: Table, three chairs, paper + books, signs — “The Next Day”, “The Day Before Performance”, “Performance Day”
Kim:
Can we start, sir?
*teacher response*
Josh:
Hmm… so, what are we going to do for this thing?
K:
I dunno.
Tori:
Can we NOT do some dodgy love triangle soap opera?
K:
Just ’cause you’re insecure about your love life.
J:
How about we satirise the whole “school leadership” thing?
T:
Yeah… but would we get marked down for humour?
*Tori is stabbing table with pen mindlessly*
J:
What are the criteria?
*checks sheet*
It doesn’t say you can’t.
To Tori: What did the table ever do to you?
K:
To Tori: Could you please not? I’m trying to write!
T:
*Tori moves book onto lap, continues mindless stabbing*
Any better?
K:
*glares at Tori*
J:
To Kim: Hey, you should write shorthand.
To all: Hmm… but if we did the leadership thing, we’d have to make sure we didn’t attack anyone personally.
T:
Just because we say “school captain” doesn’t mean we mean OUR school captains!
J:
Yeah, okay.
*looks at Kim, who is writing constantly on her notepad*
Hey Kim, writing all this down?
K:
Most of it.
T:
Sooo… Do you think we can do this without being bitchy?
J:
Probably… not.
Oh! We could do a whole play where we are jealous of each others roles in the play! Like, we think other people have better parts than ourselves… and stuff…
T:
THAT’S SO COOL!!! We could be all arty!
K:
What – just be ourselves and have monologues?
J:
Yeah, kinda. It’d be about us writing this play– so crazily recursive stuff!
T:
It’d be cool…
*hesitates slightly*
…if we can get it to work.
J:
Yeah, it’d suck if we got up and everyone just gave us blank looks when we finished.
K:
But if we do it well — hey, this could work!
1st Monologue starts here. T. stands, K. and J. freeze in background. T. walks to front of performance area, and sits on a chair.
I don’t think this could work. It’s so complicated! We barely understand it, how are we going to make other people get it? We won’t do well if no-one understands what we’re going on about. I wish I had their confidence. They’re so sure that it’s a good idea. This all comes so easy for them.
T. walks back to K. and J., and sits down again. She freezes, and then all unfreeze. Dialog recommences.
T:
Yeah, okay.
*sounds enthusiastic, a slight edge to voice — passes un-noticed by K. and J., but clear to audience (i.e. follow-on from soliloquy)*
K:
We should probably finish up, Mr. Sandon wants us to pay attention.
J:
Kim, are you going to type up those notes? We actually have a practical USE for them now!
K:
See, I knew we would!
T:
Cool. Give us copies of the notes, okay?
K:
Sure, I’ll give you copies tomorrow.
All “exit”
The next day–in English.
Someone to hold up card, announcing this. (i.e. says “The Next Day”)
K:
Hey everybody, here’s the thing from yesterday
*distributes sheet with note written on*
*Tori stabs herself in the eye with a pen– okay, perhaps that wasn’t meant to be scripted*
J:
You have waay too much spare time!
*all read script for about 10-20 seconds*
T:
Hey, this is good. Thanks for writing this up.
K:
Yeah, there were some good ideas in there
2nd Monologue starts here. K. stands, T. and J. freeze in background. K. walks to front of performance area, and sits on a chair.
Why does he always have the good ideas?
Wasn’t it my idea to write all this down anyway?
I can’t believe I’m getting jealous over ideas about jealousy.
I don’t want to admit it, but there are some great ideas in there that we should really look at using: like satirising the whole school leadership thing and being jealous of other peoples parts in a play.
I wish I could come up with ideas like that.
K. walks back to T. and J., and sits down again. She freezes, and then all unfreeze. Dialog recommences.
T:
So, we should probably start writing our script, hey?
K :
*somewhat grudgingly–not noticed by T or J, evident to audience*
Yeah, there are some good ideas we could use in there.
J:
Okay, let’s get to work.
All “exit”
Day before performance.
Someone to hold up card, announcing this. (i.e. says “The Day Before Performance.”)
T:
Did everyone practice their parts?
J:
*kind of reluctant* Yes…
K:
C’mon guys! I know we can make this work heaps well!! Show some enthusiasm. It’ll be heaps of fun!!
3rd and final Monologue starts here. J. stands, K. and T. freeze in background. J. walks to front of performance area, and sits on a chair.
*Looks at Kim* How can she be so… enthusiastic?
It’s kind of ironic, actually. In preparing for a play about a play about jealousy, I wind up being all insecure about it… insecurity was meant to be an attribute behind jealousy, wasn’t it? See, we don’t even understand what we’re meant to be performing! Her confidence…
And Tori– she seemed a little reluctant at first, maybe I’m just paranoid about acceptance of ideas; but she is really good at just getting things done — I wish that I were able to do that. She’s a good leader.
J. walks back to T. and K., and sits down again. He freezes, and then all unfreeze. Dialog recommences.
J:
So… umm… how about we practice our scripts again?
K:
Yeah, good idea!
All “exit”
Performance Day..
Someone to hold up card, announcing this. (i.e. says “Performance Day”)
K:
Can we start, sir?
*ALL FREEZE*
Characters:
K: secure/apparently confident in idea
J: exhibits an ability to come up with ideas + make good suggestions
T: down to earth, implements ideas properly, and seem to be leaders.</p>
Jealousies:
T. Jealous of K. + J.:
Insecurity (don’t think idea will work — the audience already knows this one, it was the subject of the soliloquy in scene 1) about whether the idea will work, jealous of confidence of other characters
K. Jealous of J.
Jealous of ideas/ imagination — (to be soliloquy in scene 2).
J. Jealous of K. + T.
Jealous of ability to accept these ideas (i.e. the leadership of some character, convincing others of what to do, etc.)</em>
14 Jun 2004
I was @swylie‘s today, doing various stuff, and saw an incredibly cool camera. Gimmicky in parts, but still undeniably functional and generally cool. I *think* it was a Sony DCR-TRV950 MiniDV cam, but wasn’t taking notes… if you read this, Steve, feel free to correct ;)
The image quality was drool-worthy (3CCD’s do that), with a full colour(!) eyepiece, as well as an enormous flip-out screen (if the camera is the TRV950, then it’s officially 3.5” – bloody huge, compared to all other handheld camera screens I’ve seen, at any rate) which is touch sensitive and comes complete with stylus!! It was kind of scary, though – I kept thinking I was going to poke a hole in the screen… was the only un-cool thing about the whole experience.
As for the gimmicks? Hmm. Bluetooth. Need I say more? No? Thankyou. Network streaming over Bluetooth is blatantly ridiculous, especially on what is meant to be a prosumer class camera. That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing how it worked, just as a once off. I can’t see it being great quality, seeing the throughput of Bluetooth is apparently less than 750Kbps, as opposed to the enourmous powah of Firewire (or i.Link, as Sony insists on calling it) at 400Mbps, but still… it’d make for a cool tech demo.
Long story short? I want one…
13 Jun 2004
But what the hell, I’ll respond here, anyway. Dale, hurry up and get a commenting system!
In response to the entry on his front page (as of 13/06/04 – no permalink available), entitled “The truth behind open source, closed source and anything in between.”
Specifically, in response to comments made with regard to the Fedora distribution of the Linux OS; Fedora, whilst officially a technology release, holds technological advancement as a priority (objective #5) – this, if not adequately tested, may result in instability and a product which is NOT usable by the wider community (hence in conflict with objective #1).
This is something of an occasional neccessity – they are (so it would seem) locked down by their incredibly tight development schedule, as a result of this being an established requirement of the Fedora team (presumably in order to permit Red Hat to fully evaluate technologies in advance, with a wide-testing audience, in order to ensure the continued quality of its’ commercial offerings).
That said, it is perfectly reasonable for Red Hat to NOT offer software support for this distribution – such is the nature of Open Source. It is not financially viable for Red Hat to offer [any formal level of] support to users of Fedora, as Fedora is a technology release, released free of charge to the community. This IS very much beta-quality software. I am sitting here on a FC1 desktop – I have been using this as my primary operating environment since the beginning of the year, and Red Hat 9 before then. It is usable, in the same way any Beta-quality software is usable. Rough edges, occasionally, but not typical of the finished product (or the development model!).
In the same way the Apache organisation co-ordinates the development of its various product offerings (we’ll stick to HTTPD for the sake of argument), Red Hat and other distribution development organisations are similarly responsible for the co-ordination of their respective developments.
The fundamental difference between Apache and Red Hat is the nature of their “flagship” product. Apache doesn’t have a flagship product (they are best known for their HTTPD engine, but if you visit http://www.apache.org it is evident that there is a wider range of software available and being developed under the Apache product, all of which is equally promoted, regardless as to market share/penetration or apparent application), whilst Red Hat do. RHEL carries SLA’s, stability, and a price-tag. Apache HTTPD carries none of the above, and functions perfectly well (on something like 60% of the worlds’ publicly-accessible web servers).
So what is “different” (and therefore, presumably, wrong) about the development model employed by Red Hat? To put it bluntly, they are attempting to balance priorities of bringing a commercial product to market, whilst simultaneously attempting to provide a completely open derivative within established time constaints. Conceptually, Fedora is supposed to be a software breeding ground, for integration into RHEL when it reaches maturity. Realistically? Fedora is a testing ground. They do release products to schedule (I would argue that this is their failing point). And components do eventually become integrated into RHEL products as they reach maturity.
What was wrong with FC2? I don’t know – I haven’t used it (haha, I have a GB or two of ISO’s sitting there still un-burnt). In a comparison such as the one Dale claims to be making, I strongly object to any complaints made about the boot-loader issue. When you show me ANY Windows OS boot-loaders that will support a non-MS platform (heck, one that didn’t overwrite the MBR by default would do me fine!), I’ll heed your compliants. Until then, write to Microsoft about it asking them to resolve the problem.
Because you can’t modify that part of the Windows installer yourself. Something to do with closed source concepts, perhaps?