untitled

Railways in Australia

2011-09-07T12:43:00.001+03:00

"The New South Wales government - at that time New South Wales still included Port Phillip - agreed in 1848 to accept the Stephenson gauge, but two years later the Sydney Railway Company asked the Colonial Office if the Irish standard might be adopted instead. The Colonial Office offered no objection, and the Australian plan - this time with the approval of Victoria and South Australia, by then separated - was approved. But Sydney then unilaterally decided to revert to the 4 foot 8.5 inch gauge, and began construction of its system. Since the other two colonies had already ordered engines and rolling stock on the previous basis, furious dissension was expressed. London did its best to persuade New South Wales to stick to its agreement, but could hardly interfere in the domestic concerns of independent colonies; New South Wales therefore went one way, South Australia and Victoria another.
The Issue became more complex when in 1870 South Australia decided to construct feeder lines, some of considerable length, connecting the 5 foot 3 inch main line to a narrower gauge, of 3 foot 6 inches. Goods or people moving between Sydney and the South Australian back country would therefore have to transfer twice, adding considerably to the costs and time taken for the journey. When Queensland, prompted by Robert Herbert, pressed ahead in 1864 with their own rail system on a 3 foot 6 inch gauge, followed in 1879 by Western Australia, the complex jigsaw was completed." - "Great Southern Land: A New History of Australia" by Frank Welsh

Technology Review

2011-08-16T22:51:00.001+03:00

I have been reading TR for 6 months - subscribed to Kindle edition. It feels like everlasting chewing-gum - they always write about stem cells, fossil fuels and renewable energy also looks like never-ending story. But from issue to issue - little really new and fresh information is added. There are only few features which tell something really new and interesting - Photo essay (example) (but lack of color makes it much less valuable in Kindle edition) and To Market; it was also a good read about TR50 (50 most innovative companies).

It seems that I would better just follow their website for more frequent updates (rather than 1 issue every two months) and it looks like they still publish some of the articles online for free.

Thunderstorm over Kharkiv

2011-05-27T11:43:00.000+03:00

big

How to fix broken firmware of E-MU 0202

2011-05-18T00:17:00.009+03:00

If it happened to you that you see a power led always blinking or blink only once (my case under Mac) - try holding "direct monitor" button while powering-on the device. It helped me. Under Windows people report that nasty software will still try to update firmware automatically every time but somehow they manage to prevent it from doing that.

Since I got this device I used it only with Mac, and everything was fine, well, almost fine. Then I gave the card to a friend of mine for him to try it. He never got the card working. I suspect that in Windows it had automatically upgraded firmware to a broken one.

Good hardware. Bad software.

Solution that worked for me is partly described here.

Here is the summary:
1. Download and unpack drivers archive with firmware version 5.02. EMUU_PCAppDrv_L6_1_10_13.exe should work (google it because it's no more available from the emu website).
2. Turn the device on. Clicks in speakers, "Power" blinks. Card seems somewhat dead.
3. Turn device off by "volume" knob. Turn it on again, by knob. When "power" starts to blink, press "Direct monitor" button. If after 1-2 seconds after 0202 appears in system, can play sounds etc, then goto 4. Else try off-on again, hold "direct monitor" for second, etc.
4. Run Updater.exe from \Audio\UFU folder. And proceed with an update. (Screenshot)
5. When it's done the card will automatically reboot.

Machine Head building X11

2011-05-14T21:55:00.000+03:00

One day I was watching an official video for a song Halo of Machine head and at the end noticed something very familiar what I couldn't not believe can be seen in such a video. Things totally unrelated, a well-known metal band and a listing of X11 build process. Yes, X11 build process. Somebody decided to include what you usually can see while building an XFree86 or X.Org Server into a music video for a basically anti-religion song. I wonder if the original idea was to include Unix with all it's daemons and stuff into opposition to religion.

Below is a screenshot from the video (watch it on YouTube, around 4:51 - 4:52).

Marmorosy - Chornohora (2009)

2010-06-18T12:46:00.003+03:00

Last year I've visited wonderful world of Transcarpathia (Outer Eastern Carpathians) three times - in Spring, mid Summer and late Summer. All three trips were amazing, each gave me a special and unforgettable feeling of immersion into the world of Nature, the world completely different from what I am used to in my every-day life. Freedom, Fear, Sounds, Smells, Winds, Pace. Everything is different. You're rethinking many basic things, you have time and place, at last.

1st and 3rd trips - Marmorosy - Chornohora. The route is about 80 kilometers, at first we've been trying to make it together with my friend. We were unsuccessful in our undertaking - both first time ever in Carpathians and mountains of such scale in general.
Here are some photos from related album:

We decided to return there some day and finally go through the full route. Surprisingly we've got an opportunity to do it pretty soon the same year at the end of Summer with two more friends. But unfortunately the friend who was with me the first time has broke his foot and we had to go in all three. It was very, very exciting to go same paths for the second time, to see same trees, streams, and pass the part where we got lost last time. Traditionally, find some pics below or see the full story in photos with commentaries.

Bioshock 2 SE

2010-06-03T13:28:00.008+03:00

After Bioshock 2 SE was announced I've been searching for a way to buy it, unfortunately none of online shops was shipping Special Edition to Ukraine. I believe it is corporations and copyright laws to blame. The last chance to get it was using shipito service.

I'll skip the details and show how another one Bioshock 2 Special Edition looks like:

Yes, I know it was released about 4 months ago but who cares)

X.Org and default browser mess

2010-01-27T23:00:00.005+02:00

I'm using Ubuntu 9.10 at home. As some may notice, Firefox-3.6 has been released about a week or so ago. Had to remove Firefox-3.5 and add ubuntuzilla repository which makes latest official builds from Mozilla available in Ubuntu. Everything went fine and now I'm writing this post from Firefox-3.6. The only thing which was not working properly is opening links in a browser from Psi instant-messenger. It started to open links in w3m instead of FF. While Pidgin was still using Firefox for URLs as expected.
So here is the path the URL travels to the browser from Psi in case you don't use Gnome or KDE or XFCE:
Psi tries xdg-open, it is a shell script, it determines the flavor of your desktop environment, if none of KDE, Gnome and XFCE are found then it launches /usr/bin/sensible-browser which is another shell script which will finally open the url with one of gnome-www-browser or x-www-browser or gnome-terminal & www-browser, or if you don't have a DISPLAY environment variable, just www-browser assuming you are in a bare console. Of course all these *www-browser files are supposed to be symbolic links to real browsers.

It all looks damn ugly. BTW, nice to see FF has learned to open tabs right after current one and not at the very end of the list :)

KOLOVOROT FEST 2009

2010-01-24T12:13:00.009+02:00

Previous year I've attended to three or four noticeable concerts, this is much less compared to year 2008 when I was going every here and there. I want to share some photos from festival KOLOVOROT (КОЛОВОРОТ) of 2009 which takes place in Kharkiv, Ukraine every year around winter solstice.

Experience of using Windows Vista after six years of Linuxing

2009-10-23T21:54:00.011+03:00

Some time ago I found that I'm not comfortable with 15″ laptop and decided that time has come to buy something new, nice and tiny. I have chosen Acer Aspire 3810T it's display is 13" and LED-backlit, 4GB of RAM, CPU enough for browsing the Web and running old games.. decent battery life. It comes with Windows Vista Home Premium. Ok, I've heard a lot of negative feedback about it but I wanted to give it a try.

So, everything was going pretty OK, no problems browsing the Web, chatting, puttying, etc. So I'm using Windows for one month. Installed few programs, OpenOffice, Firefox, Skype, Machinarium(really enjoyed the game :)). And a lot of software come preinstalled(shitty games, trial version of Microsoft Office 2007, antivirus, backup managers, etc).

Yesterday I decided to uninstall everything I'm not using. So, what I've discovered:

Different software still uses different installers;
Some uninstallers didn't remove links from Start Menu(system-wide as well);
During deinstallation of MyWinLocker window has appeared saying three programs were still running that should be closed for deinstallation to continue and one of them was an Explorer. I gave it a try, and it has killed Explorer, and left me with empty screen after deinstallation has finished. I could try to logout through Ctrl+Alt+Del.. but.. what if I were an ordinary computer noob? I would panic;
In some uninstallers progressbar has been restarting a lot of times without any change of action description message... it was just saying something like "uninstallation will finish in 0 seconds". It's confusing.

To sum everything - I'm not satisfied.. Exactly the same problems were there back in 2003, and 2000, and earlier. Microsoft did nothing to solve them. And these problems come just from uninstalling software. I didn't try any other scenario.. And I don't want to even try..

I know Windows 7 was released yesterday, and it gets only positive responses. I'm going to order and try it (Acer has a program to get free upgrade to Windows 7(but it still costs $20 for shipping(:D Canonical ships free discs of free OS, and Microsoft(maybe it's Acer's decision) want customer to pay for shipping.. :D Not to say that it would be better to just download the image of CD without wasting CDs(or DVDs)))). So, when I upgrade to Windows 7 I'll install some Linux for everyday use (don't want to mess with GRUB overwritten by Windows upgrade)

Shorthand for ebmedding Flickr images to post

2009-07-31T14:00:00.009+03:00

I post very occasionally because it is a pain to include a bunch of photos from Flickr into post: a lot of copy-paste of urls, titles, making sure about size of photo I'm including URL for, reference URL to photo on Flickr..

I wanted to simplify this process. Searched for a way to make some server-side scripting in blogger, and found nothing except the possibility of executing server-side JavaScript on Google Spreadsheet. Not for Blogger unfortunately.

So I wrote a simple script that searches for span tag with flickrLooukup value in class attribute. This tag should contain a title attribute with value in a form of "photo_id,size_suffix". Than it performs lookup of all information about photo using Flickr API and substitues span with something more useful.

So instead of something like:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dusoft/3559295427/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/3559295427_2f7e18d87c_m.jpg" border="0" alt="Acer TravelMate 2490" /></a>

Now I need just this:

<span class="flickrLookup" title="3559295427,m"></span>

I've the code inserted right into a template, but if somebody find this useful there are no problems to make widget/gadget out of it.

And to test it(I haven't tested it in anything but Firefox), here are some random photos:

Cleaning laptop keyboard

2009-05-24T20:02:00.005+03:00

I have been using my Acer TravelMate 2490 for more than two years now. Keyboard got pretty clogged with dust, crumbs and other weird stuff. So I decided that today is a good day for cleaning it up.
Getting keyboard out is rather simple if you know how to do it. For mine model I had to carefully withdraw plastic cover above the keyboard(it is attached only with latches) to get access to screws that keep keyboard fixed. After unscrewing them keyboard can be detached from the base.

After keyboard is detached all keys should be removed, very carefully, the process is pretty straightforward. It took about an hour to clean all the keys and a board with bare hands(I wish I had forceps) and old toothbrush.

GP2X Wiz

2009-05-19T13:41:00.009+03:00

I discovered GP2X Wiz about year ago.. From that moment I wanted it.
I ordered it at www.play-asia.com in april, order was shipped on may 13th, on 18th of may it was here in Ukraine.

Here it is:

I ordered console itself, screen protector film, accessories set, and a leather case. In a box I also found some candies and a $5 discount coupon.

Genuine leather case for Wiz has disappointed me a bit because it has plastic sides attached to it. I was afraid to take console out of this case - these plastic sides looks like they are going to left a lot of scratches on my Wiz. I don't know if I would make use of it.

USB-cable, accessories, Wiz and a CD with user manual in different languages:

At www.gp2x.de I found NES and SEGA emulators already ported to Wiz. Picodrive Sega emulator works perfect, but GPFCE (NES emulator) fails to shutdown properly and only way to launch something different is to restart Wiz.

Hope all major emulators will be ported to Wiz (especially I want Spectrum:)) in near future. And I've got another reason to finally learn C++ and SDL

And some candies!

Lava lamp

2009-02-19T13:21:00.009+02:00

Scale model: Su-35 (Flanker-E)

2009-02-03T00:06:00.004+02:00

Two weeks ago I bought this scale model, by russian manufacturer Zvezda. Actually when I was a child, my older brother used to assemble scale models of similar planes.. Now it looks like time to try it myself.

Before attaching missiles and chassis:

This is my first model, I made some mistakes, used too much glue, cutted some details too much, etc.. thanks to assembling scheme - some parts were really not easy to understand for novice

It is still to be painted

Penguin monster

2009-02-02T22:03:00.007+02:00

Today I was presented with a little gift:

I've heard that there are some toys like that.. But when I look through the instruction I got really surprised. It gonna grow up to six times!

He is 7cm tall now

He will live there in a bucket for about 2 weeks, then I suppose he wouldn't fit in it.. then.. I still can't imagine, but, I suppose he'll be finishing up in a bath.

OpenSuSE mirror trouble

2009-01-26T11:04:00.006+02:00

At home I use OpenSUSE 11.1. Few days ago I tried to upgrade my VirtualBox from version 2.0 to 2.1.
I ran YAST -> software management, found a new version of VirtualBox in the Virtualization:VirtualBox/openSUSE_11.1 repository. I choose to update the package.
Then I get an error "The file http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Virtualization:/VirtualBox/openSUSE_11.1/i586/virtualbox-ose-kmp-pae-2.1.0_2.6.27.7_9.1-7.1.i586.rpm is not found on a medium"
I tried this URL with wget and fount that it redirects me to a mirror:

http://77.88.19.74/opensuse/repositories/Virtualization:/VirtualBox/openSUSE_11.1/i586/virtualbox-ose-kmp-pae-2.1.0_2.6.27.7_9.1-7.1.i586.rpm

But, that server gives me an HTTP 404 response.
Then I wrote an email to OpenSuSE ftp admin, he replied that that server (77.88.19.74 (dispenser.yandex.net)) serves the file right to him in Germany.

Then I tried to recieve directory listing from that mirror throug some proxy, the easiest way was to use translate.google.com. And i received the listing.

So, it is for sure now that dispenser.yandex.net filters content for at least ukrainian IP-addresses(as for 2008-01-26). That's not very kind of them(yandex team).

Fortunately, administrators of download.opensuse.org changed configuration to not redirect me to 77.88.19.74 mirror, and now I'm able to get needed files with YAST

КОЛОВОРОТ X

2008-12-23T02:01:00.002+02:00

19,20 грудня 2008 року, клуб Форт, Харків

Nokturnal mortum
Темнозорь (no photo)
Dub Buk
Крода
Reusmarkt
Велимор
Svarga
М8L8TH

Nokturnal Mortum - Валькирия

2008-12-21T00:45:00.002+02:00

Machine Head

2008-11-10T00:00:00.000+02:00

2 липня 2008 року, Б1, Москва

Machine Head
Icon In Me

Острів Хортиця в останні дні літа

2008-09-02T07:57:00.000+03:00

30 серпня 2008 року

Металевий злодій 3

2008-07-29T13:46:00.000+03:00

27 липня 2008 року

:tremor
Epicrise (no photo)
COPROBAPTIZED CUNTHUNTER
PORRADA (no photo)
GURGABS (no photo)
Dead Silence
LETHAL DEFLORATION (no photo)
FRESH CUT (no photo)
CATALEPTIC (no photo)

ЧАЙКА Open Air 2008

2008-07-15T07:00:00.000+03:00

7-8 липня 2008 року

Сторінка події на last.fm
Мої враження від Чайки

Кліщ!

2008-06-02T10:47:00.002+03:00

Відео:
Зачіпляємо кліща ниткою
Витягування кліща

Me

2008-05-27T15:37:00.000+03:00

Не сумуй!

2008-05-22T04:09:00.000+03:00

Moscow, Moscow Doom Festival III

2008-04-22T04:55:00.001+03:00

http://flickr.com/photos/dusoft/sets/72157604673834105/
http://flickr.com/photos/dusoft/sets/72157604673660867/
http://flickr.com/photos/dusoft/sets/72157604673584313/

A dead bird

2008-01-29T16:12:00.000+02:00