Made by Mikal – Page 27

The Crossroad

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

Written by a Victoria Cross recipient, this is the true story of a messed up kid who made something of himself. Mark's dad died of cancer when he was young, and his mum was murdered. Mark then went through a period of being a burden on society, breaking windows for fun and generally being a pain in the butt. But then one day he decided to join the army... This book is very well written, and super readable. I enjoyed it a lot, and I think its an important lesson about how troubled teenagers are sometimes that way because of pain in their past, and can often still end up being a valued contributor to society. I have been recommending this book to pretty much everyone I meet since I started reading it.

Terrible pong

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

The kids at coding club have decided that we should write an implementation of pong in python. I took a look at some options, and decided tkinter was the way to go. Thus, I present a pong game broken up into stages which are hopefully understandable to an 11 year old: Operation Terrible Pong.

Searching for open bugs in a launchpad project

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

The launchpad API docs are OMG terrible, and it took me way too long to work out how to do this, so I thought I'd document it for later. Here's how you list all the open bugs in a launchpad project using the API: #!/usr/bin/python import argparse import os from launchpadlib import launchpad LP_INSTANCE = 'production' CACHE_DIR = os.path.expanduser('~/.launchpadlib/cache/') def main(username, project): lp = launchpad.Launchpad.login_with(username, LP_INSTANCE, CACHE_DIR) for bug in lp.projects[project].searchTasks(status=["New", "Incomplete", "Confirmed", "Triaged", "In Progress"]): print bug if __name__ == '__main__': parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Fetch bugs from launchpad') parser.add_argument('--username') parser.add_argument('--project') args = parser.parse_args() main(args.username, args.project)

Recent wood turning

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

Just a quick dump of some recent bowls:

The End of All Things

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

I don't read as much as I should these days, but one author I always make time for is John Scalzi. This is the next book in the Old Man's War universe, and it continues from where The Human Division ended on a cliff hanger. So, let's get that out of the way -- ending a book on a cliff hanger is a dick move and John is a bad bad man. Then again I really enjoyed The Human Division, so I will probably forgive him. I don't think this book is as good as The Human Division, but its a solid book. I enjoyed reading it and it wasn't a chore like some books this far into a universe can be (I'm looking at you, Asimov share cropped books). The conclusion to the story arc is sensible, and not something I would have predicted, so overall I'm going to put this book on my mental list of the very many non-terrible Scalzi books.

Geocaching with a view

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

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

Chet and I went on an adventure to LA-96

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

So, I've been fascinated with American nuclear history for ages, and Chet and I got talking about what if any nuclear launch facilities there were in LA. We found LA-96 online and set off on an expedition to explore. An interesting site, its a pity there are no radars left there. Apparently SF-88 is the place to go for tours from vets and radars. I also made a quick and dirty 360 degree video of the view of LA from the top of the nike control radar tower: [kml: 20150726-2]

Geocaching with TheDevilDuck

Post author:mikal
Post published:July 27, 2015
Post category:Diary

In what amounts to possibly the longest LAX layover ever, I've been hanging out with Chet at his place in Altadena for a few days on the way home after the Nova mid-cycle meetup. We decided that being the dorks that we are we should do some geocaching. This is just some quick pics some unexpected bush land -- I never thought LA would be so close to nature, but this part certainly is. [kml: 20150725-1]

Casuarina Sands to Kambah Pool

Post author:mikal
Post published:July 19, 2015
Post category:Diary

I did a walk with the Canberra Bushwalking Club from Casuarina Sands (in the Cotter) to Kambah Pool (just near my house) yesterday. It was very enjoyable. I'm not going to pretend to be excellent at write ups for walks, but will note that the walk leader John Evans has a very detailed blog post about the walk up already. We found a bunch of geocaches along the way, with John doing most of the work and ChifleyGrrrl and I providing encouragement and scrambling skills. A very enjoyable day. [kml: 20150718-1]

Wanderings

Post author:mikal
Post published:July 16, 2015
Post category:Diary

I am on vacation this week, so I took this afternoon to do some walking and geocaching... That included a return visit to Narrabundah trig to clean up some geocaches I missed last visit: [kml: 20150715-1] And exploring the Lindsay Pryor arboretum because I am trying to collect the complete set of arboretums in Canberra: [kml: 20150715-2] And then finally the Majura trig, which was a new one for me: [kml: 20150715-3] I enjoyed the afternoon. I found a fair few geocaches, and walked for about five hours (not including driving between the locations). I would have spent more time geocaching at Majura, except I made it back to the car after sunset as it was.