liedra's journal

First humongously major knitting project finished :D

2008-07-23T11:11:41Z

This is the first jumper I've ever knitted. It took me about a month to do in my spare time. Maybe a little more. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, though it's a little, uh, roomy :) But better to be too big than too small, right? Right?

Things I learned from this jumper:
Knitting in the round
Using circular needles
Picking up stitches
Casting on stitches mid-work (for the underarms)
Raglan increases
Patience
That I suck at ribbed stitches :( How do I make these more regular? They're all over the place -- it seems when I bring the wool to the front to purl it makes it really loose or something.

Anyway I guess I have no excuse, I'll have to knit Nicholas' chain chomp hat now ;)

Jumper update!

2008-07-19T12:02:45Z

Just finished the first sleeve of my jumper, it took a little longer than I expected though! Hope to have the rest of it done by Thursday so I can wear it to Canberra :) Also, I had a haircut today, as you can see! It was quite hilarious, Nicholas and I went to this place in Chatswood and the girl who was cutting my hair started to trim it even after I asked her to cut it to shoulder length (it was below my shoulderblades), so I had to ask her again and she was all "awwww such lovely hair!" and went on to giggle nervously each time she had to chop another huge chunk of it off. Anyway I'm pretty pleased with the outcome (and Nicholas' hair turned out pretty well too, imo!).

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

2008-07-16T06:52:22Z

This sounded just terrible when I first heard of it, but I watched the first part today and it was hilarious! Highly recommended, for fans of Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly, etc.) or not :)

Yes, that's the chick from series 7 of Buffy (she plays of the potential slayers) and she's also from The Guild ( http://www.watchtheguild.com/ ). And yes, that *is* who you think it is as the "nemesis". lol!

http://www.drhorrible.com/act_I.html

Some exciting things

2008-07-13T11:05:36Z

Some exciting things have been happening recently! I went to Melbourne for the Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference where I presented a paper (lots of fun)! When I came back, my jumper was getting quite big, I'm almost finished with the body of it now (as you can see!). Few more rows I think, then a base, and then I'll be done :)

Yesterday was Nicholas' mother's birthday, so we went into town to get some things (and pick up my fixed Macbook, which now has a new LCD inverter), and we found this awesome awesome shop that sells yummy yarns -- I bought some of the famous Noro silk garden wool, and some pure NZ hand-dyed merino wool.

Then today Nicholas and I went to the aquarium to find him some more fishies -- we got two platies named Galileo and Newton (Galileo is the red/black one in the photo) and some glowlight tetras, which have schooled happily with the neon tetras that have been there for a while. The tank is now a really nice community tank with lots of activity! Fish are cool.

Desktop Tower Defense

2008-07-04T06:53:05Z

Nicholas and I are addicted to this game.

My best score on Normal is 4122!

I highly recommend it.

The Unknown Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy Prequel You've Already Read [Douglas Adams]

2008-07-03T01:40:37Z

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Don't they realise that they CAN'T recreate Douglas Adams' awesomeness? He's gone guys, seriously, you'll just screw it up for everyone. This is the equivalent of going to his grave, jumping on it, doing little pirouettes, and singing hallelujahs. Please don't :(

The Unknown Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy Prequel You've Already Read [Douglas Adams]:

Seven years after his death, an unfulfilled idea of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy creator Douglas Adams is about to come to fruition, as the BBC prepares to bring unlikely detective Dirk Gently into the Hitchhikers universe in a new radio series.

(Via io9.)

ARGH

2008-07-01T00:37:20Z

SMH it's not burglarised, it's BURGLED. OMG.

Also, wtf@Texas: http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/guns-burglary-and-racism-jury-clears-suspect/2008/07/01/1214677985973.html

The guy SHOT and KILLED two men, but he's okay, because he was looking after a neighbour's house? wtf? Since when is a house and property worth more than a human life?! GRRRRR

GOD THIS STORY MAKES ME SO ANGRY IN SO MANY WAYS

When you're presenting at a philosophy conference

2008-06-19T07:24:20Z

... you tend to check out who your "competition" is. Today the AAP timetable went up, and I find out that instead of the 30min timeslot that I wanted, I ended up with a 90 min timeslot. Against Big Names.

Whatever am I going to talk about for 90 mins to my audience of maybe 1? :)

Fucking hell

2008-06-19T05:07:54Z

I love it when Australian politicians sit down and watch a bit of TV and find out that people swear!

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/amp-ramsay-scores-80-in-40-mins/2008/06/19/1213770800781.html

I mean seriously, if you are watching this and you are offended by foul language or the way Ramsay treats his staff, TURN IT OFF.

I don't want to excuse Ramsay for his treatment of staff or anything, I think it's pretty awful, but I avoid it and don't contribute to his ratings by not watching the damn program.

THE SECRET IS TO BANG THE ROCKS TOGETHER, GUYS

General squee!

2008-06-16T04:35:26Z

This weekend was fricken awesome! I had such a great time. In fact, best weekend in a loooooong time. Yay!

I particularly wanted to share with you the latest purchase I am squeeing over, which is 2 500ish gram hanks of tea-dyed hand-spun perindale wool that I bought at the market yesterday.

I also bought 4 little hanks of wool from the Rainbow Wools people who were there -- two blue and a purple and an awesome bright orange. They were on sale for $5 each which made them just :D~

Here's a picture of them (plus the bright turquoise and pink and peach colours Cat bought to start her first knitting project with) after we spent an epic night rolling balls in front of the fire and a Jane Austen movie (you'll see some of the brown balls too from my first hank of tea wool, I learned how to roll centre-pull balls!):

Anyway, I'm going to make a Faux Fair Isle Raglan jumper with all that tea coloured wool -- there's a great pattern I was introduced to on Ravelry. Just need to go get some circular needles in the right sizes! The Lincraft near me is okay but a little short on the different length circulars (har har a little short, get it?).

BTW if you're on Ravelry, add me! I'm "liedra".

Salmon :-O

2008-06-13T00:23:34Z

Well, I got salmoned today, after that last livejournal post! I ended up speaking to someone who had also been salmoned before so he explained it to me:

---------------------

razorthinsalmon 9:52

HOLY SHIT, RON PAUL'S CAMPAIGN IS OVER! LOOKS LIKE MCCAIN HAS FINALLY SECURED THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION!

liedra 9:53

who on earth are you, lol

razorthinsalmon 9:53

Okay, am I talking to someone? Do you know how these salmon IMs work?

Gotcha.

A bot named UniversalSalmon fixed us up.

I'm a random person, just as you are to me.

I know about this because I've been salmoned before and I ended up researching them.

It's actually kind of cool...from what I understand, most of these salmon bots aren't malicious, and
I've met at least one nice person through them.

Are you nice?

liedra 9:56

sure, I'm nice, especially since I've now researched what this is :)

---------------------

So what it is, essentially, is a bot that picks two random people (triggered by recent lj updates) and acts as an intermediary to strike up conversation.

Cute, huh? Anyway, "razorthinsalmon" and I had a short conversation but I feel generally positive about the experience, if a little weirded out at first. This honestly stinks to me of something some xkcd fan would do.

Here is the community where salmonees congregate, you've now been warned! :)

Suck it, eBay!

2008-06-12T23:49:54Z

"The competition watchdog has flagged its intention to scuttle a plan by online auctioneer eBay to force its Australian users on to a PayPal-only payments system.

Citing concerns about the "anti-competitive effect" of the proposal, the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Graeme Samuel, has issued a statement calling on eBay to delay implementation of the plan, which was supposed to take effect from next Tuesday."

-- http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/accc-thwarts-ebay-paypal-plan/2008/06/12/1212863822348.html

Good news for all eBayers, not just Australians! This was going to be the testbed for an international rollout of the plan.

1987 AIDS ad, no wonder I had nightmares

2008-06-11T05:19:43Z

I was around 7 when this was first aired on TV, and it scared the living daylights out of me. Looking back on it now, I can see why! I wonder if any ads on TV nowadays scare kids in quite the same way, or if they've toned down the scariness factor?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U219eUIZ7Qo

Scary Timetable of Doom

2008-06-06T06:06:18Z

Yes, I am crazy. Yes, I kinda have to be. But! I deliver this with the disclaimers: I know what I have to write, I've done all the reading, I know where my stuff is coming from, and I can write pretty quickly when I'm nose to the grindstone. All percentages are as of today. Can I do it? I hope so!!

Timeline for completion:

June: finish chapters 1 (literature review) and most of 2 (theory): chapter 1 approximately 85% complete, chapter 2 approximately 20% complete. Write paper and talk for presentation at CAPPE, Kioloa, and AAP conferences, submission to ECIS journal, approximately 75% complete.
Week 1: paper writing, scholarship renewal
Week 2: paper and talk writing, Kioloa trip
Week 3: chapter 2 writing
Week 4: chapter 1 & 2 writing, CAPPE presentation

July: finish chapter 2, work on chapters 3 (case studies, approximately 30% complete) and 4 (application of theory & further research, possibly being merged into other chapters, but currently approximately 10% complete). Present at AAP conference.
Week 1: chapter 2 writing
Week 2: chapter 2 & 3 writing
Week 3: AAP conference
Week 4: chapter 3 writing
Week 5: chapter 4 writing

August: finish up remaining chapters, work on introductory (10% complete) and concluding (0%) chapters. Full draft complete by end of August.
Week 1: chapter 4 writing
Week 2: Finish up chapters
Week 3: Introduction writing
Week 4: Conclusion writing

September - December: finishing, editing, and revising, with submission late December/early January.

Why I am going to see Indiana Jones

2008-05-23T12:55:49Z

IMDB keywords for the movie:

Supernatural
American Abroad
Hat
Journey Shown On Map
Good Versus Evil
Hero
Sidekick
Heroine
Rescue
Artifact
Action Hero
Jungle
Humor
Adventurer
Professor
Sequel
Whip
Cult Director
Leather Jacket
Sequel To Cult Favorite
Fourth Part
Archeologist
Fedora
Indiana Jones
Pistol
Revolver
Character Name In Title

Yes that's right folks:

Hat

Hat

Hat

If that doesn't make it worth seeing, then nothing does.

Firefox beta evaluation complete

2008-05-22T23:22:11Z

Dear Firefox:

I tried you out for a couple of months or so, but you're just far too unstable for me now (actually your previous beta permutation was much better than the most recent one!). Maybe it's the addons that I was using, I don't know, but honestly, I really like those addons so using you without them would make me upset. I'll come back when you're released, though, because you play youtube better than Safari and I like the delicious and NoScript addons. Til then, though, Safari it is. At least it doesn't crash every second window (yes I sent in crash reports!).

Sincerely yours, liedra.

Return of the Thursday lunch time serenades at ANU

2008-05-22T03:26:39Z

Guitar & Keyboard combo with two guys singing terribly out of tune:

"This is the end of the road
This is the end of the road
This is the end of the road
And we're all dying"

Deep.

Mood: PISSED OFF

{:D

2008-05-20T11:41:26Z

For all those wondering what I was making in my previous post, have a pic of the finished product!

I'm very pleased!

Knitting question

2008-05-20T00:53:00Z

I'm not sure if anyone on my friends list knits, but I am a little desperate for some help with a pattern I'm using.

I am doing a 1x1 rib and the shaping starts with a k2 row (k2 p1 k1 p1 etc) and I'm trying to work out why, because it seems that with the shaping, I'm "off by one" for the rib instruction. Here's the instructions:

rib 3 * sl1, k2tog, psso, rib 7, rep from * to end ... 99 sts

So I'm assuming that means "k1 p1" x3, * slip a stitch, knit two together, pass the slipped stitch over, (k1 p1)x7, repeat from * til end and I should have 99 stitches left.

What I actually end up doing is to keep the rib pattern in line:

k1 (k1 p1)x3 slip a stitch, knit two together, pass the slipped stitch over, then to keep the rib pattern consistent I have to p1 here, then (k1 p1)x7.

Is this what is meant by "rib 7"? keep the rib pattern going for 7 "ribs"? If I missed the first k1 at the beginning of the line I'd be in line properly but it very specifically says to finish the main section with a k1 p1 line which means to keep the rib going in line I'd need to start with a k2 row.

Also, from 123 stitches I find I have 111 left after doing this (my way), not 99. I can't see how you can actually get to 99 from that because each decrease only drops 2 stitches and 7 "ribs" apart only gets me 6 decreases.

And then even if I started the line off kilter for the rib I'd still probably only get 1 or 2 more decreases, which won't get me to 99.

Please help! :D

Huzzah!

2008-05-14T05:40:29Z

My paper was accepted into the AAP conference, to be held in Melbourne in July. Considering I whipped up the abstract in less than a day this is pretty good! Now I just have to write the paper, heh. Fortunately it's mostly on what my PhD is on so I can borrow a lot from that.

In other news, I had a blood test today and now my arm hurts, kinda as if I hit my funny bone on my elbow. And my little brother graduates tomorrow, so my parents are here for dinner tonight, yay :D Congrats to you Lockie!

Ummmmm in other news I received a lovely card from one of my FFXI friends (thanks Amanda!) which was just wonderful, complete with a whole family of paper cranes inside! Another FFXI friend is coming to Australia some time in the next couple of months from England, so I hope I'll be able to show him around a bit! Well, at least show him Real Beer.

Work on my PhD is sort of slow at the moment. It's a bit frustrating because all the ideas are in me, they're just taking their sweet time to come out. Had a conference here a couple of weeks ago that was very interesting, with some awesome people taking their time out to listen to me ramble about some ideas that I've had for what to do After I'm Done. Heh. Must admit, I'm kinda sick of being poor, heh :( Student scholarships really aren't that great, even though they're tax free.

Anyway that's my update for today, off to a seminar soon!

Engineer's guide to cats

2008-04-14T22:59:27Z

This has to be one of the funniest youtube videos I've seen in a while. I know some of you are new cat owners too, so you will probably enjoy it particularly!

Philosophy blog

2008-04-11T01:31:56Z

This is just a plug for the blog that a few of my peers and I have started: http://cappe-postgrads.blogspot.com

We're a wide-ranging group of postgrad students interested in applied philosophy and ethics, if that gets you going :) (and I know it does for a few of you! rawr!)

Anyway that's it!

I hate Jimmy Page

2008-04-10T03:20:27Z

Actually I don't, I hate Thursdays at uni though, which is essentially the "play crappy music very loudly" day. Sometimes we luck out and get the Cure, other times we lose and get random bad dance music. Like today. At least the Chinese music you could put earphones on and listen to something else over the top of :-(

I was quite stunned by this article where a senior Anglican minister wrote to Justice Michael Kirby (of whom I suspect you may recall I am something of a fan) telling him to repent his wicked wicked ways. The letters (PDF) in particular are really quite an amazing read. I think Justice Kirby was quite restrained in his responses given the tone of the letters sent to him, which is to his credit (although he possibly loses a point by invoking Godwin's Law, but let's not make too light on what is a serious subject).

I'm not Christian but it really is some of these selected interpretations that suit peoples' particular prejudices that makes me abhor the church as an institution. No Christians today believe the world is flat, or that adulterers should be stoned (along with many other now-considered "over the top" reactions to things), so why should they make an exception for treatment of homosexuality, which is something that is now well-accepted by science as not being a "choice" as many homophobes would have you believe? It just screams intolerance and exclusion, which is certainly not something that fits in with the doctrines preached by Jesus. I just don't understand how that is reconciled by practising Christians who hold this view.

/rant off, back to work!

MAKE IT STOP

2008-04-09T01:58:27Z

DEAR CHINESE PERFORMANCE PEOPLE IN THE ANU UNION COURT:
I AM NOT GOING TO GO TO YOUR STUPID CONCERT
PLEASE STOP PLAYING THE 1:30 TRACK OF AWFUL CHINESE VIOLIN MUSIC OVER AND OVER AGAIN
I AM GOING CRAZY UP HERE AFTER TWO WEEKS OF THIS

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH IT IS INGRAINING ITSELF IN MY BRAIN

Of chocolate and coffee

2008-03-25T05:36:17Z

This weekend was quite exciting! I've come home with sooo many bruises all over me...

Went up to Spring Hill for Easter Working Bee fun with the family. It rained most the time which was actually lovely, and we relaxed and enjoyed the cool crisp weather, and got fat on good food and lots of chocolate. I was originally going to go home Monday, but Sunday night Nicholas went back to Sydney so he could move Monday, and asked me to go with him to help. So I did, and it was lucky I did because it took a while for the people who said they'd help to actually get there to help (and one piked). So it was me and Nicholas' brother and Nicholas and their mother packing and moving and stuff, and we got it all done in 2 hours, which isn't too bad!

The new house is really cool, a 1 bedroom apartment right in the heart of Mosman, and literally 15 seconds walk from a wonderful Italian-run coffee shop which makes just awesome coffee! And there are real Italians that show up and sing along with the baristas and it's just awesome. They do a great jam donut too ("bombe"? I think they call it).

Definitely going to be going there a lot! Nicholas needs more "stuff" though. 4 noodle bowls, a wok, wine glasses, and a rice cooker do not a kitchen make, no matter what he says!