Pixelated Dreams has moved!

Just a short note for anyone wondering about the prolonged silence. I'm moving the best content from here over to my new tech home, TechWhimsy.

Please pop over and take a look and let me know what you think.

Thank you.

So. I'm on Facebook. Now what?

The tide became irresistible. I caved in and signed up to the Facebook thing that all the kids are talking about (at least now my wife will stop nagging me to join). If you have been wondering where I have been for the last week or so, now you know.

I've joined, I've built a profile, I've played with some apps and I've even got a (very small) handful of friends. However, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next. Everyone is talking about Facebook but it still seems to be passing me by. Maybe I don't get it. Maybe I'm subconsciously non-committal about investing time in yet another social network. Maybe I'm going to be hampered by my decision to only be friends with people I interact with on a personal level.

Maybe I just need more friends.

If you're reading this and you know me in some way and you're on Facebook, tell me what I'm missing. I really want to know.

At least I feel good about totally skipping the whole Myspace thing.

Are you being served?

If you're wondering where I have been for the last week and a bit, I have been researching and writing lecture notes and some lab exercises on the Apache web server for my sys admin subject.

The fruits of my labour are here [pdf]. The notes contain minor modifications from the lecturer, but 95% is my work. I don't have all of my original work as I wrote big chunks of it on the internal wiki that this subject uses.

I put a lot of effort into this assignment so I hope I do okay results-wise.

My stars have NOT been aligned

There have been personal family emergencies, irrational deadlines at work and an amazing convergence of assignment deadlines.

In short, I have been a spectacularly absent online individual.

Perhaps I can blame the sudden discovery of Gliese 581c for my confused and convoluted life at the moment.



Because it surely can't be all my fault, can it?

More information: European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere - Astronomers find first Earth-like planet in habitable zone

Image source: ESO Press release photo page

Recent low activity

My energy in the last week or so has been largely consumed by some minor health issues. Hopefully it will clear up soon but in the short term there is likely to be a bit more downtime.

Hmmm

Yes, I am aware that the previous post was a mammoth one.

It would appear that Blogger's own tips regarding expandable post summaries don't work, despite being designed for "layout" style templates and "classic" templates.

The workaround in the Google Group doesn't seem to work either...

I shall continue my investigations. I know nothing about XML so I guess I'm just going to have to learn something in the process.

Ignore the "Continue..." links for now. They're part of the problem that I don't understand.

Edit 15/01/07: Well, I've fixed the "Continue..." bit by simply reverting all the changes I had made to the template. That puts me back where I started. I'll work this out one day. Expandable post summaries look so cool, and I want one. Maybe Santa will bring me one if I act real good all year long. I don't actually need to be good - just act it. I think I can scam that one for a year...

Seasons greetings to you all

Yes, to both of you...

I'm enjoying a (relatively) low tech Christmas period with my extended family. It comes heartily recommended.

Back again mid-January!

Gratis and Libre

A quick note before I ramble on about freedom, free stuff and other related subject matter over the next two months.

For anyone not already familiar with the concept, free software (which is only one element of freedom in the context I will be posting in) comes in two forms:

1. "free as in beer" or gratis, or "freeware" which means the software is provided without charge but the software is something of a black box - you can use it but you don't have any rights to do anything else but use it (for example you can't take a look at the source code and fix a bug that's been annoying); and
2. "free as in speech" or libre, which means the software is released under a licence that also gives you access to the source code and usually means you can also make as many copies as you like to give to friends, co-workers, that guy on the street corner holding a clip board and who would "just a few minutes of your time to discuss how you can save the planet/fight the power/easily and cheaply stop them stealing your thoughts through the technology of tinfoil".

It's a small distinction, but an important one. Libre software is almost always gratis (in fact, I don't think I've ever come across libre software that wasn't). It doesn't always work the other way around.

More housekeeping

I know it has been quiet. Starting a new job has meant that there have been extra demands on my time, as well as the fact that my new job has a network that is locked down to a greater degree. For better or for worse, that means no blogging during business hours (which is only fair and I'm not complaining). That generally leaves me with time to either research or write, but not both. Since this blog is already a bit lean on research, I'm not prepared to reduce that, which means I'll be posting less. Not ideal, but hopefully I'll find a way around it.

I'm working on being more organised, both in work and play. It will be interesting to see how that pans out.

Biology, technology, and everything in between

There won't be my usual monthly rant/editorial for November. Biotechnology is a field of knowledge that I am deeply interested in but profoundly ignorant about. It's also an area that, while it has the potential for extraordinary and almost unfathomable benefits to so many things, can be so quickly steeped in controversy.

Biotech can be a sensitive topic, whether it be frankenfoods, stem cell research or human/machine interfaces to assist the disabled to interact with the world around them. Quite frankly, I know so little about so much of this vast area that I really don't have a strong opinion on so many of the big issues. I generally try and live by the idea that being grossly uninformed should render my opinion worthless (well, more so than usual) and I plan to try and stick to this.

My hope is that by the end of this month I will know just a little more about biotech than when it started.

I'm still suffering the after-effects of laryngitis but the posting pace should pick up soon.

A short absence

Right now, as I have self indulgently whined here, I'm sick. There will probably be no posts for a few days. Apologies to the faithful (both of you).

Clarification of my site licence

I've been fiddling with the wording on the Creative Commons licence at the top of the page over the last couple of weeks to make sure it accurately reflects my intentions. Finally, I think it does.

Essentially, for all the text in my posts, everyone has the following rights:
They are free to:

• copy, distribute, display, and perform the work; and
  
• make derivative works

of my blog posts, as long as they:

• attribute the work as specified by me; and
  
• do not use the work for commercial purposes

not to mention that these licence terms should made clear when reusing the work.

How I want to be attributed is simple. Just state in some way that I am the author and provide a link through to Pixelated Dreams.

Of course, this is, as termed by the Creative Commons people, a "human readable" summary of the full legal terms (which I'm not sure I understand but I trust Larry Lessig in this). Of course, all of these conditions can be waived with my approval (which means that, on the highly unlikely chance that someone wants to use something I've written in a commercial publication of some sort, I'm sure we could come to some arrangement).

I want to make it clear that only the text is covered by this licence because, from time to time, I may link to pictures which belong to someone else. Obviously, I have no right to slap a CC licence over the top of their work. If anyone reading this (and there's at least 5 now - someone has come here twice from Bloglines so there must be a subscription of some sort going on - hi by the way, thanks for reading, feel free to comment, it gets so lonely some times...) wants to reuse a photo in some, please obtain the owners' permission. If it's my photo, I'll be sure to leave some sort of notice regarding licencing.

Some housekeeping

If you are a repeat visitor (all four of you), you might notice the Pixel Map in the right hand corner.

Without some sort of focus, this (barely) read blog would be just a simple aggregator of interesting geek news and there are places that can do this better than me. Without some focus I am nothing. Some would argue that I am nothing anyway (and to them, I wish that they be eaten by a grue), but since they're unlikely to ever stumble upon Pixelated Dreams anyway, this is not likely to be on ongoing issue for them.

The Pixel Map is not a hard and fast rule. It is simply part of a broader cartography that may or may not be strictly adhered to, but will always be loosely followed.